Neuroarts Performance Lab Seeks Early Career Researchers for a Project

The Neuroarts Performance Lab (the Lab)

The neuroarts revolution has led to an explosion of groundbreaking research on the therapeutic benefits of engagement with the arts for neurological conditions, trauma, mood disorders, and general mental health. The Neuroarts Performance Lab (NPL) unites neuroscientists, teaching artists, psychologists, and the medical community to research the benefits of using the arts (music, dance, theater, visual arts, and writing) as treatment for depression, trauma, PTSD, Parkinson’s, dementia, Alzheimer’s, addiction, autism, and general brain-body health. Experts report an urgent need for community facilities to conduct research and create programming to serve populations in need. The Lab is designed to fulfill these needs. A key part of this mission is collaborating with scientist for interdisciplinary and novel research.  

Grassroots, Community-Based, Collaborative

The Lab, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, collaborates with the Lower East Side arts community, engaging a powerful collective of artists, galleries, dance, and theater companies. The Lab syncs with the productions (artistic work) of these companies to spread art, wellness, science, and increase neuroarts awareness. Currently, in partnership with New York Theater Workshop (NYTW), the Lab is creating a piece based on their new adaptation of Tartuffe (starring Matthew Broderick). The Lab’s Parkinson’s group is exploring Tartuffe’s theme of masking, unmasking, and identity through the lens of the Parkinson’s mask—a PD symptom that causes the face to lose expressiveness. The partnership continues in the spring with NYTW production of My Joy is Heavy.   

Embedded and Invested

The Lab will be New York’s first community-based neuroarts lab with a dedicated space and a unique mobile unit for community engagement and research. The Lab will be an incubator for new ideas through case studies and longitudinal studies (the virtue of being embedded in a community).

The Lab offers workshops, making the neuroarts accessible to a wide audience. The goal is to conduct innovative research through interactive, community-based programs that deliver real-world benefits and create a scalable model for communities of all sizes. The Lab has a dedicated space at the Rod Rodgers Dance Company (RRDC) in New York City.

Neuroarts Community Network (NACN)

The Lab also serves as a hub not just for artists, but for the community. The Lab reaches deep into the Lower East Side, including: public schools, senior centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, sports teams, housing projects, shelters, recovery centers, trauma support groups, and hospitals. The goal is to create a model of neuroarts community outreach and to develop ways to feed expertise back into the community by training caregivers, teachers, counselors, and the community’s teenagers to become skilled neuroarts leaders. The network will launch locally and expand to underserved and rural areas.

Contact for Questions: Kurt Brungardt, neuroartslabnyc@gmail.com