Dance For All People Micro Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion

Join Rachel Balaban of DAPpers and filmmaker Deanna Camputaro of D Camp Photography & Filmmaking LLC for a special screening of this 12-minute documentary short that captures the inside story of DAPpers—an extraordinary intergenerational dance program combining Rhode Island seniors, Brown University undergraduates, medical students from the Warren Alpert Medical School, and community dance ensembles of all ages.

Discover how the art of dance improves health and strengthens community. Members of DAPpers, medical students, and physicians will be present for a talk-back with the audience afterwards.

Curious about the art/medicine connection? Come meet the filmmaker, program founder, and members of DAPpers!

Dance for All People (DAPpers) is a multigenerational dance class designed for people with movement challenges and ageing bodies. DAPpers believes in the power of all people to find vitality, creativity and joy within our own bodies. DAPpers celebrates each other as we are and fosters growth through dance, music, and dialogue in a welcoming community that encourages people of all ages, abilities, and identities to flourish.  

Rachel Balaban is a dancer, teaching artist, and maker. She’s committed to helping people access their vitality and health through movement and to making dance accessible to all populations. In 2013, Rachel founded Dance for All People (DAPpers), a multigenerational dance program designed for people with movement challenges and aging bodies. She is Teaching Associate and Artist-in-Residence at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University where she plays a pivotal role in supporting the well-being and personal/professional development of medical students, residents, fellows, and other learners. Through a diverse range of art-based initiatives, she works collaboratively with the Assistant Dean of Well-Being and other stakeholders to help the medical school community flourish. 

From 2013-2022, Rachel was co-founder and co-director of Artists and Scientists as Partners (ASaP), with Julie Adams Strandberg, at Brown University. ASaP was a 2 semester academic program exploring the impact of the arts on people with neurological disorders, specifically Parkinson’s disease and Autism Spectrum Disorder. In addition to teaching, she focused on the connection between community members and undergraduate students, coordinating academics, research, and arts programming.

Rachel presents and leads movement workshops for schools, faculty, foundations, corporations, conferences, community centers, hospitals and other healthcare facilities. When Rachel isn’t dancing, you’ll likely find her swimming, sailing, paddle boarding, walking her dog, biking, or practicing yoga. Being in motion, with her family, and in community with others is what brings her the most joy.

Deanna Camputaro is a freelance photographer and short film maker.  She has worked on film sets for AFRI and is a photographer and filmmaker for Dancing Legacy. During the covid crisis she created her breakout short film capturing, compiling and editing dance work of 60 dancers from Florida to New York.  Her photographic work revolves around a broad definition of portraiture, the world of dance, equine photography, and a documentary style of land, sea, and city-scapes, many times capturing the effects of global warming. Deanna strives to capture moments in life as they happen and  evolve over time. She wants to communicate the story of us all and the place upon which we live.

Deanna believes in the traditional forms of planning for photo shoots and film production, however, she finds the greatest parts of stories are in the unexpected moments of surprise. She marvels at how they can change the focus of the work. She believes development, pre and post production are not linear, but cyclical.  This allows the subjects the space to drive the story through those unexpected moments. It becomes a collaboration between artist and subject. 

“I am an investigator with my lens.  I want to find the story that unfolds. Sometimes this is very different from the one I planned.  It takes more time to float back and forth through the cycle.  To me it is worth it.  It feels much more authentic.  The narrative really does not belong to me.  It belongs to my subjects.  It is a collaboration…what parts they are willing to let me capture and what parts I can bring together to honor the true spirit of the subject.”

For forty years, Deanna was a  visual art, photography, and dance teacher. She was the proud mentor of many scholastic award winners in the visual arts and many Arts Education student teachers from RISD and RIC as well as the Public Humanities students from Brown University. She was an instructor for Hip Hop, Modern, West African, and Latin dance styles. She had the privilege to participate in two learning tours to Mali, West Africa to study the art of traditional dance and bogolan cloth design and production.  She continues to choreograph meaningful works.

She founded and was the artistic director for the multi-arts program, Human Creativity, for twenty years. This program was chosen as one of the top ten best practices programs across the country by the Arts Education Partnership.   She was the designer, grant writer, and lead teacher of the Central Falls Arts Academy for five years.  As part of this program, she brought professional artists into school spaces and students into professional spaces for meaningful long-term relationships and collaborative projects.  Many of these projects revolved around the themes of peace, identity, and social justice.