Dana Karen (“DK”) Ciccone is a comprehensively certified Pilates instructor (Balanced Body, National Pilates Certification Program) who helps people in pain improve strength, mobility and well-being in a weight-neutral environment. She is also trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy, through the Pain Psychology Center.

Having fallen in love with movement through dance as a young child of musician parents, DK’s dreams of being on Broadway were stolen by recurring low back pain that began at the age of thirteen. DK later discovered mat Pilates in 2007 as a means of rehabilitation following a disc herniation, and it became central to her own chronic pain management toolbox. Almost ten years later, she was introduced to the Pilates equipment and began training as a Pilates instructor with a focus on serving clients through post-surgery rehabilitation, persistent pain, and chronic conditions.

DK’s twenty-year professional career in the health industry outside of Pilates concerns social change theory and strategic communications, which laid the foundation for a love of movement education and facilitating transformation in others. Her research in global health has been published in Social Science & Medicine, BMJ Open, and Global Health Promotion, and presented at the Brookings Institution.Her first book, You’re Meant to Move: A Guide to Conquering Chronic Pain, Increasing Stress Resilience, and Reclaiming an Active Life, came out December 2023.

Compelled by the strong conviction that chronic pain is the most pressing—and solvable—epidemic of our time, DK launched Movement Remedies in 2022, a boutique Pilates studio in Boston, Massachusetts, serving the chronic pain community.

When not pushing her clients and workshop participants to move beyond their self-imposed limits on strength, mobility and confidence through Pilates, DK can be found dancing the Cha-Cha with her husband or painting local seascapes with watercolors.