Essential Lessons of Dance: Moving Through Life

Haas is the founder and artistic director of Dances for a Variable Population, a multigenerational dance company and educational organization committed to promoting creative movement among older adults of all abilities through Movement Speaks classes and Dances for Seniors programs. Haas describes this book (cowritten with Mikhaela Mahony) as blending a practical manual and autobiography with a manifesto on the broader implications of balance, flexibility, and creativity. Memoir and movement illustrate Haas’s credo that the study and practice of dance is an opportunity for renewal and regrowth. She shares her story and invites readers to try the program’s exercises to develop the mind-body connection she believes can energize and empower people of all ages and abilities. The personal becomes professional when she writes about her own journey as a young dancer and how important movement is, especially as someone who has battled lupus since she was 26 years old.