Pamela Quinn is a professional dancer who has had Parkinson’s disease for twenty years. Her personal experience of PD combined with her keen knowledge of the body derived from dance training gives her a unique position from which to analyze patients’ physical functioning and to imagine creative solutions to the problems posed by PD. Using a combination of cuing systems, music, dance, athletic drills, imagery and physical strategies, she gives people concrete tools to improve mobility. She also trains people to use their environments to help them with their symptoms. Her innovative approach has gained growing recognition and made her a sought out movement therapist, teacher and speaker in the PD community. She thinks of herself as a PD coach.

She was the subject of a profile on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and featured in a piece by WABC in New York. Her writing has been published by Neurology Now, On the Move and Dance Magazine, for which she wrote a feature article on her experience as a dancer who developed a life-altering movement disorder. In addition to her private practice as a movement consultant, she regularly teaches both for PD Movement Lab, a class she originated and which is sponsored by the Brooklyn Parkinson Group, and for NYU’s Edmund J. Safra’s Wellness Program for PD at the JCC in NYC. Professional engagements include venues such as NYU, U Penn, Univ. of Maryland, Rutgers Univ., Atlanta’s Southeastern PD Conference, St. Louis and keynote presentations for Houston’s HAPS program, the New England Biennial PD Conference, and Connecticut’s MADPA program at the Univ. of Hartford. She has collaborated with David Leventhal on lecture/demonstrations for the NY Academy of Medicine, Brown University, Columbia’s Narrative Medicine Program and the Center for Narrative Practice. For both the second and third World Parkinson Congresses, she has been a teacher, panelist, and moderator and her video, “Welcome to our World” won their video competition in addition to receiving a Dance Media award. Her second video, “With Grace” was featured at the third WPC, and her most recent video, “Neurodance” (a rhythmitized version of a neurology exam) has been received with acclaim. Recent live performances include two works for people with PD: Three Sheets to the Wind, and The Matisse Project for MOMA. In film, she was a consultant to Christopher Walken who played a cellist with Parkinson’s in “A Late Quartet” and she appeared in the movie briefly herself. Pamela is a graduate of PDF’s Clinical Research Learning Institute, the Applied Teacher Training Program, author of Coping Strategies to Manage your Parkinson’s and creator of the DVD “Smart Moves with Pamela Quinn”. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.

Her resume can be viewed HERE.