Maria Portman Kelly has supported the New York City based flagship program since 2011. She created a Volunteer Training Program, and has co-facilitated Introductory Training and Professional Development workshops for dance teachers, movement experts, and medical professionals, and developed Theater Movement for PD for the Brooklyn Parkinson Group community. Maria acted as production assistant for three volumes of a successful At Home DVD series for Dance for PD, and has been instrumental in supporting innovative projects involving live-streaming and Moving Through Glass, a dance-based Google Glass App for people with Parkinson’s. She has represented the program at various panels and events, including Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health Arts in Aging, the Lincoln Center Global Exchange, and the World Parkinson Congress, and was invited to co-facilitate an art and entrepreneurial residency with The Amahoro Dance Troupe of Gisenyi, Rwanda.

She is a former dancer with the Louisville Ballet, Susana B. Williams Modern Dance Company, and Ballet Español, and has performed as an actor with Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others. In collaboration with The Bushwick Starr, where she worked as General Manager for four years, she co-created classroom curriculum for Big Green Theater, their environmental education initiative. Maria holds a BFA from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Medgar Evers College. She was selected by the New York Foundation for the Arts as an Emerging Leader, and has an MA in Disability Studies from CUNY School of Professional Studies.