Donate

To donate offline, checks can be made out to “Dancers’ Group” and mailed to:
Claudine Naganuma
Danspace
473 Hudson Street
Oakland, CA 94618
Please include “dNaga” in the check’s memo!

All donations are tax-deductible, and directly support program expenses

Your donation helps us keep our programs free of cost for participants. You can indicate which program you would like to go towards on your check or on the online donation form. Learn more about our programs, Dance for PD® and GIRL Project, below.

dNaga’s mission is to build community through art and access, while fostering creativity and power through play and inquiry.

Dance for PD® Oakland

Director Claudine Naganuma, a certified Dance for PD® teacher, leads dance classes every Thursday on Zoom, as well as In-Person classes every Friday & Saturday. Classes are free for participants, and are supported by individual contributions that are tax deductible via dNaga’s fiscal sponsor, Dancers’ Group.

Classes are free for participants and have been held at Danspace since 2007. Members of the dance class participate in performances with dNaga, as with the PEACE Project and includes dancers from the Brooklyn Parkinson Group. This year, dNaga and Dance for PD class participants recently performed at the World Parkinson Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The WPC is an international forum for dialogue on the latest scientific discoveries, medical practices, and caregiver initiatives related to Parkinson’s disease (PD). The goal of WPC is to help expedite the discovery of a cure and best treatment practices for this devastating disease.

As many as one million Americans and up to 10 million worldwide live with Parkinson’s disease. More than 35 peer-reviewed scientific research studies conducted at major universities around the world have shown the benefit of dance in helping those living with PD to address symptoms related to balance, cognition, motor skill, depression and physical confidence. Please support us as we share our own experiences to a worldwide audience who can make a difference for so many of these people.

In addition to creating work with people with Parkinson’s dNaga performs work that speaks to relevant issues of our time. Naganuma is one of the founding members of the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC). In 2018, we performed in APICC’s United States of Asian America Festival.

GIRL Project

The GIRL Project, currently in its sixth year, is housed at EastSide Cultural Center and serves middle school aged girls living in the San Antonio District of East Oakland. Our mission is to offer a safe space for girls to create art, engage in empowerment activities and build sisterhood in Oakland. We offer these activities free of charge to the community to support youth amongst a backdrop of violence against women and girls in Oakland.

By cultivating creativity, independence and sisterhood, we generate love, caring and kindness that transforms our own lives and emanates outward into our families and our communities. Our program offers all manner of art and self-awareness, and is driven by play and exploration. The programs are taught by women artist mentors that are informed by a pedagogy of kindness and care.

“There’s a lot of people who want to damage to girls in Oakland.”
– GIRL Project participant

The GIRL Project, as an art and empowerment workshop, has been a highly effective way to build sisterhood and introduce girls to creative and positive possibilities that the world has in store for them and at the same time provide a safe space to acquire safety and leadership skills.

Please consider donating to dNaga through our fiscal sponsor!

With gratitude,
Claudine Naganuma (Artistic Director)

We would love to hear from you. Please consider joining our community circle!

Photos by Diane Dew (from PD Active) and Lily Ocampo