Movement is Life

BIODANZA ~ meaning ~ ‘to dance with life’ ~ is a well-established system of

developing and awakening us to our full potential.  In the 1960’s Professor Rolando

Toro Araneda, a pyschologist, anthropologist, poet and painter from Chile, had the

Insight, to see dance and music as powerful tools that enable people to express the

very depth of themselves.

Biodanza, represents his search for a form of human expression using creativity,

music and movement that engages body, mind and spirit, in the moment ~ getting

you more in touch with what you feel ~ working from the heart, and not the head.

The power of our own dance reconnects us to that deep current of spirit that connects

all human beings and flows through us, like a great river of light.  Doing Biodanza,

re-connects you to love and fills you with energy, respect and passion for being alive.

 

Music and dance have become separated in today’s technological world from our

deepest essence and expression. Today we live more in our heads than our body ~

we have become an alienated machine culture. We watch dance as entertainment,

instead of participating. Yet history clearly indicates dance was integral to healing,

calming, communicating, and gaining insight. It was a serious part of their lives ~

a drive for rejuvenation, greater intensity for living, and self-empowerment.

The ancient powers of dance as a healer, may even be a biologically encoded aspect

of human existence. In some parts of the world, dance is as much part of life as the

seasons. Dance was used to express and define symbolic life rituals and to alter

cellular interaction. The latter, is our body response to altered behaviour – for instance,

if you are feeling low, skip or waltz along the garden path, and you will readily

appreciate the spirit-lifting benefits of this movement!

 

Many factors in life, may block our potential, and the negativity around this, causes

us to become frozen in our musculature, with rigid responses and fixed postural

patterns, which limit our range of feeling, expression and perception. Often society

forces us to adopt ways of being, that are not truly our own. We adapt to please, to

avoid pain and to gain approval.  Our identity can become a mask of confusion.

 

Our first task is to free the body. When the body is free, the heart can move.

When energy moves through the heart, emotional healing is facilitated. Through a

change in movement expression, we can discover our resistance to life, change

parts of our personality or behaviour patterns, and begin to unfold into life from a multifaceted, rather than a linear perspective. As the body and mind loosen up,

there follows a release into active, dynamic movement, with a letting go of tension

and repetitive or obsessive thought patterns.

 

Everything that is alive must move to survive.  Deeply felt emotional traumas that

enter the body along biological and physiological pathways, that words cannot

effectively communicate, can be processed through movement. There are

non-verbal and pre-verbal things that happen in us when we realign ourselves

within our bodies. When you put the psyche into motion, it will heal itself. 

Biodanza seduces you to reconnect the mind and body ~ to re-discover your

magnificence, as well as see the beauty of others and fall in love with the pleasure

and joy of life. Biodanza is a way of accessing our true identity and integrating it,

to states of being. What truly, is you, begins a process of emergence.

 

Rolando Toro maintains that humans build barriers in their minds and lose

touch, with the essential instincts for a healthy life. Biodanza helps to reconnect

us back our innocence, confidence and spontaneous joy. It explores 5 different

areas of expression and experience known as ‘vivencias’, or states of being vibrantly

alive. They are ~

 

·         VITALITY ~ we all need to reach out for what we need and want in life

Biodanza provides a group of exercises aimed at restoring and integrating

our fragmented selves, to restore vitality.

·         Affectivity ~ our capacity for love. We need the ability to like and be liked by others,

      to be able to love, communicate and empathise with others.

·         Creativity  ~ We need to create relationships, moments, or a future. Creativity is how you create and live your life for yourself, or place your creativity at the service of life.

·         Sensuality  ~ rarely acknowledged, but inherent in almost every aspect of life….

      in a smile, a gesture, a hand held gently, seeing the beauty in others. Biodanza

      awakens and  reinforces feelings of sensuality   

·         Transcendence ~ going beyond ourselves ~ transcending or stepping outside your

      current self, to increase your human potential and expand your consciousness.

In Biodanza, the genetic potential of the participant is awakened by evoking a sense

of who you are, awakening your identity, communing with your sacredness.  You also

weave a web of connection with the group, ‘your community’ i.e. ~  to feel that

essence of universal connection that binds us all. Love is the key and through

dance,  we can discover the immense transforming power of love within ourselves.

We awaken to our sacred self.

 

Using the 5 principles, you start to notice what is out of harmony and begin the process

of restoring your instinctive capacity to choose what is good for you, for those close to you

and for your life.  Biodanza provides the SAFE space to reconnect you with your inner

source of joy, passion and enthusiasm.

 

‘We can all dance upon wings of life, if we open our minds and choose to fly’

Extracts from ‘Namaste’ and ‘Nature and Health’ Magazine,

& the Personal Transformation notes on the Biodanza website

www.biodanza.co.za

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