Katarzyna Filipowicz is working in the Public Health Department in Jönköping, Sweden. She is a member of the network Culture and health, Dance and movement therapy association and Dance for PD Sweden. She is co-founder of the Swedish and Polish network Dance for PD.

In 2013 she started to lead dance classes for people with Parkinson’s at the Geriatric Clinic at the Jönköping City Hospital. In 2015 Katarzyna co-organized the first conference and workshop in Dance for PD® in Sweden, where researcher Sara Houston as well as Johanne Duff and Amanda Fogg from UK were invited. Katarzyna was one of the speakers at the largest international community of healthcare improvers in Europe Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare in Gothenburg in 2016 and in the Occupational Therapist Forum in Malmö in 2017.

In collaboration with the Association for People with Parkinson’s Disease and Degenerative Brain Diseases and Caregivers in Gdansk, Katarzyna was one of the arrangers of the first Dance for PD® training in Gdansk, Poland 2021.

For the last years, she has been leading Dance for PD at Smålands Music and Theater in Jönköping as well as online and in-person dance classes with Parkinsons community in Gdansk and Gdynia, Poland. Based on the Dance for PD® program, she started running dance classes for people with strokes and Multipel Skleros (MS). She offers workshops and trainings for caregivers and relatives in the field Dance for people with cognitive impairment- dementia.

Katarzyna is collaborating with many organizations and associations, including the Parkinson’s Association Jönköpings County, the Neuro Associations Jönköpings County, the Association for People with Parkinson’s Disease and Degenerative Brain Diseases and Caregivers in Gdansk and Gdynia, as well as with the medical and research community in the field Dance for Health.

Katarzyna is one of the authors of the research article Dance for Parkinson, multifaceted experiences of persons living with Parkinson’s Disease published in the Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy in 2024.

Katarzyna is a ballet dancer, dance teacher, Dance and movement therapist. She graduated the state ballet school in Łódź Poland and was employed to the dance company at the Grand Theatre in Łódź, where she danced solo parts in performances such as Giselle, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Promised Land, Snow White and others. She worked with excellent national and international choreographers and performed in Germany, Holland and Sweden.

“I have always been interested in a dance as a tool for non-verbal communication and human development. Working with people who suffer for neurodegenerative diseases made me realize that dance has a huge power in restoring faith in yourself and other people, as well as bringing a sense of hope and joy of live.”