Meet Our Neighbors: Kurt Brungardt and the NeuroArts Wellness Lab

Teaching artist and theatremaker Kurt Brungardt has dedicated his career to bridging people to the body-mind connection through the arts. Most recently, Kurt has returned to East 4th St in partnership with Rod Rodgers Dance Company (RRDC) to create the NeuroArts Wellness Lab, a community-based lab which brings scientists and artists together to create evidence-based programming to improve brain and body health.

I sat down with Kurt to discuss his story and work, our collaboration as partners in the community, and his goals for the future as the NeuroArts Wellness Lab continues to develop here on the block.

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Kurt’s Journey into Neuroarts & to RRDC

“When I was in graduate school,” Kurt begins, “I would teach in PS 75 four days a week” for work-study. “My mentor was a guy named Daniel Sklar, the author of Playmaking, which won the Distinguished Book Award from the American Association of Theatre and Education and became the foundational book for the 52nd Street Project. He is a National Teaching Artist for the Kennedy Center.”

“He then came down with Parkinson’s, over a decade ago.” After his diagnosis, Daniel asked if Kurt could create a workout for him, since Kurt also has a background in sports fitness.

Inspired by the well-roundness of dancing, sword-fighting, highly physical Shakespearean actors, Kurt developed what he calls ‘a Shakespearean workout,’ a series of acting conservatory-style movement, voice, and expression exercises adapted for people with Parkinson’s. What started as a gift to Kurt’s mentor became Shakespeare for Parkinson’s, which offers free classes and a theatre troupe program through support from the Parkinson’s Foundation.

“My collaborators are great teachers, performers, and arts advocates. Michaela Larsen is a young opera star on the rise. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2023. She is a voice teacher and coordinator of undergraduate voice activities at Stony Brook University, and she participates in voice research at the school’s medical center. Our composer, Erin O’Hara, is an eclectic singer-songwriter, musician, composer, and producer for film, television, and stage. She has composed original scores for a number of award-winning films, including those nominated for Oscars, Peabodys, and Emmys.”

When Kurt started looking for a physical location to host sessions, he thought of East 4th St, where he had worked before.

He reached out to Rachel Lubell, the general manager at Rod Rodgers Dance Company, who loved the project, and RRDC signed on as a physical sponsor for the program. “Then the pandemic broke out,” Kurt laughs. But, even after shifting to Zoom, the program has gone on to have five successful years of programming.

Now, Kurt has started to transition this existing work into new horizons in collaboration with RRDC: the NeuroArts Wellness Lab.

 

Collaboration on the Block

The NYTW Education & Engagement team first met Kurt last fall during a meeting with Rachel at RRDC while planning our Masquerade Open Salon, a night of open-mic style performances during which the company performed. Kurt introduced himself and the ideas behind the Lab, and together, we began curating our Arts and Community Day for My Joy is Heavy, a day of family-friendly workshops in dance, puppetry, and musical theatre meant to celebrate joy and improve our well-being through the arts and togetherness.

Collaboration is represented not only by the gatherings and community we build together, but also by the lessons and inspiration we gain from one another. For example, after discussing the theme of “masquerade” in conversation with NYTW and RRDC, Kurt thought to connect this idea back to his work with Shakespeare for Parkinson’s. Kurt shared the idea of masks to his participants, who immediately connected it to a facial-stiffening symptom known as ‘the Parkinson’s mask,’ and then wrote pieces about their fears of losing self-expression using Romeo & Juliet as inspiration. Similarly, Kurt has been reflecting on My Joy is Heavy, connecting its themes of care to Coriolanus to devise a new docu-theatre piece.

“That all came from the community,” Kurt remarks, inspired by the sharing of art and ideas here on East 4th St.

And with Arts and Community Day as a celebration of the launch of the NeuroArts Wellness Lab here on the block, Kurt is now moving onto the next steps of executing the vision behind the Lab.

 

The Future of the NeuroArts Wellness Lab

“The next step is really the big idea: to take the power of all the arts—music, dance, theater, painting, poetry, storytelling—and also the power of the block, to have the first community-based neuro-arts lab,” Kurt explains. “We have the foundation, we have the facility, we have a lot of curricula, and we’re developing a population of participants.”

The only thing the Lab needs now: science partners. For researchers, Kurt believes collaborating with the Lab would be a beneficial opportunity, given the community’s excitement to participate.

This scientific aspect of the Lab is essential. On any given day at the Lab, participants might practice a number of artistic disciplines in various workshops. Scientists at the Lab could track participant engagement in these activities through quantitative research and various technologies (like EEG readings and movement accelerometers), as well as qualitative research (like interviews and video analysis). Their findings could inform which artforms are most therapeutic to the individuals in the Lab and, with enough research, to broader populations with the same medical conditions. This research builds a feedback loop. “Teaching artists then build the most successful evidence-based things into their curriculum.”

Once the Lab opens its doors, Kurt dreams of its impacts reaching far and wide.

“We’re going to focus on this block and the Lower East Side community, which is diverse and has a lot of aging populations. Then we’ll expand it to the city and the whole country.”

Ideally, the Lab will set up a studio and production hub, allowing its teaching artists to livestream and record their classes and workshops to share out. “If someone has Parkinson’s in Kansas, they could see what we’re doing here and participate,” Kurt says, using his original home state as an example.

But for now, the goal is to start here on E 4th St.

“I think if we build it right locally, then it’s going to naturally expand.”

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The Rod Rodgers NeuroArts Wellness Lab is located at the Rod Rodgers Dance Company, 62 E 4th St. Keep an eye on the RRDC website for more as the Lab continues!

Photos above from Arts & Community Day and Masquerade Open Salon by Marcus Middleton.

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Categories: Community Spotlight and For The Culture. Tags: Community Spotlight, For The Culture, Marty Chandler, My Joy is Heavy, and Rod Rodgers Dance Company.