JCC @ 76th St Group Classes

All classes cost $100 per hour and will be held at the 76th st JCC. Please be aware last minute (<24hr cancellations and no-shows will be charged).
One supporting family member or support worker is welcome to join (please indicate if this is the case along with other needs for accomodation)
We accept self-direction direct pay, credit cards, checks and online payments through our website.

Drumming Group 

Wherever there are people gathered, you are likely to find music playing. Music helps us connect as it is a shared experience! Students that enroll in this 8 week program will engage in various group activities involving use of drums and percussion instruments from around the world that produce the basic rhythms and grooves that we hear in people’s favorite music today. 

Students will learn to use various parts of their body to create drumming including their breath and voices. 

Participants will be encouraged to take turns, share instruments, play and have fun together in this absolute beginners experience. No background in music is required. Participation will be individually encouraged in a warm and positive learning environment. 

Drama/ Role-Playing

Drama and theater naturally allows for people to experience real world situations. For instance, through role play one could transform those real world events into metaphors. It can provide a very accessible bridge between inner and outer realities and allow for a dialogue between the two. This happens in other forms of art as well but I sense that drama’s ability to enact events and then transform into real time tips can be incredibly therapeutic. 

In a session I could ask clients to learn a small script, move things around the space as we explore a world we are trying to develop, try an activity on their feet, or play with improvisation. By encouraging play, a person who might have lived a traumatic experience, dealt with loss, or might have had a hard time expressing feelings can begin to open up in their life again. Playing allows us to take risks when we feel that we are too fragile to step into the world and take on new challenges. Play is extremely healing, as it’s laughter and joy.

Yoga/Kinaesthetics/Movement

We can’t be open to the world we live in if we hold stress and anxiety on our body. We firmly believe that our bodies hold a lot of our every day experiences and stress. Our bodies are the instrument we use for to move through the world. Just like a violinist would take really good care of their violin—keep it in a soft velvet, hard case, away from sun exposure and regularly checking that the strings are tuned—our instrument is our body which needs our attention and care. 

We won’t pay as much attention to the flow of yoga poses but to build strength, flexibility and the ability to sustain pose and breathing. Through simple yoga poses where we can expand our breath and allow ourselves to relax, our minds and our heart to open, and our souls to welcome the world around us. We love to incorporate music during the lessons. 

Our hope is that through engaging in this group class,  students will  find play and pleasure in exercising. Did you know that with  only 20min of exercise our bodies secrete enough endorphins, which is our bodies natural happy hormones, to improve our mood? Exercising also boosts energy, promotes sleep and can prevent or manage many health problems!

Art

This group class is all about learning how to express your yourself through the use and manipulation of different materials. Students will be encouraged to explore and build their skills in different mediums such as painting, drawing or sculpting as well as crafting multi-textured pieces. The group context will add a socialization and communication skill building as participant will be encourage to interact with one another and appreciate each other’s work.

Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a structured, yet open-ended role-playing game. It is normally played indoors with the participants seated around a tabletop. Typically, one player takes on the role of Dungeon Master (DM) while the others each control a single character, representing an individual in a fictional setting. When working together as a group, the player characters (PCs) are often described as a “party” of adventurers, with each member often having their own area of specialty which contributes to the success of the whole.

During the course of play, each player directs the actions of their character and their interactions with other characters in the game. This activity is performed through the verbal impersonation of the characters by the players, while employing a variety of social and other useful cognitive skills, such as logic, basic mathematics and imagination. A game often continues over a series of meetings to complete a single adventure, and longer into a series of related gaming adventures, called a “campaign”.