The pedagogical and therapeutic success of Biodanza is due to its effects on the organism as a whole and its power of existential rehabilitation. Each of them has, by themselves, a transforming effect. Related in a coherent set, by means of a scientific theoretical model, they constitute a beam of ecofactors of extraordinary effects, capable of influencing even the lines of genetic programming.
The pedagogical and therapeutic success of Biodanza
In Biodanza, the music is rigorously selected to stimulate the ecofactors related to the five lines of experience.
We call “organic music” those that present biological attributes: fluidity, harmony, rhythm, tone, unity of meaning and kinesthetic effects; these have the power to induce integrating experiences.
Because music can awaken intense experiences, its selection in Biodanza obeys to semantic criteria, that is to say to its thematic, emotional and experiential meanings. Music can awaken sentimental emotions erotic, euphoric, nostalgic, etc., which, when being danced, are transformed into experiences.
Biodanza has a repertoire of around 250 exercises and dances whose purpose is to activate human movements in a harmonious and integrative way; there are no dissociative movements in Biodanza. We have a set of sensory-motor, affective-motor integration and sensitivity-kinesthetic exercises; Another set of exercises is formed by simple dances that stimulate the experiences of vitality, sexuality, creativity, affectivity and transcendence.
During the practice of Biodanza, music is transformed into a corporeal movement, that is, it “incarnates”, and the dancer enters into experience. From the music-movement-experience combination, subtle changes are triggered in the limbic-hypothalamic, neurovegetative, immunological and neurotransmitter systems.
All these dances are ecofactors of great power of experiential deflagration, they mutually reinforce each other and their effect is the homeostais of the organic functions, the regulation of the integrative-adaptive-limbic-hypothalamic system and the elevation of the quality of life in the sense of fullness and enjoyment of living.
The methodology of Biodanza is oriented to the deflagration of integrating experiences, capable of overcoming the dissociations that our culture induces.
Currently a large number of people live states of psychosomatic dissociation. They think about something, they feel differently and they act in a dissociated way with respect to what they feel. The unity of our existence is in permanent crisis. It is through the experiences that the neurophysiological and existential unity of the human being is perfected.
The experience is the intense feeling of being alive “here-now” and has strong kinesthetic and emotional components. The experiences have different emotional nuances, such as euphoria, eroticism, tenderness, inner peace, etc., this contributes to the authentic expression of identity.
The experience is different from the emotion. Emotion is a response to external stimuli and disappears when they cease. The experience is an experience that encompasses the complete existence, has deep and lasting effects where the organism participates as a whole and induces the feeling of being alive, transcending the ego. It is a “here-now” experience.
The awakening of experiences, which allow us to be ourselves, constitutes a new epistemology. Our intense instinctive and affective motivations are inhibited by cultural patterns. The deep experiences that compromise the unity of our psyche are the original forces of life.
The rational approach of our conflicts does not resolve in depth the dissociative disturbances; Being aware of our conflicts does not change the behavior. It is the experience of being alive, the cenesthetic perception of our body and, in short, the possibility of “being honestly ourselves” which allows an integrated and healthy existence. For this reason we do not use the analysis of conflicts, but we stimulate the healthy part of our identity through intense experiences, “the moment is the only place where you can live”.
The vivencial methodology allows the integration process. Biodanza is, by definition, a system of integration of human potentials. Integration means “coordination of activity between different sub-systems to achieve the harmonious functioning of a larger system”. The experience is the essential agent of integration of the functional unit: “we inhabit the here and now, in a cosmic time”.
“Biodanza is a poetic of human encounter” …
The connection with people is essential in every act of rehabilitation or healing, there is no solitary growth (mystical or therapeutic techniques of solipsistic character are a fallacy). The contact with other people is what allows growth.
The verbal connection is insufficient. It is necessary the contact, the dance in couple or collective and the corporal commitment within a sensible, subtle context and in feed-back.
On the therapeutic and pedagogical effects of caress, there are currently multiple scientific investigations. Hundreds of authors have discovered that contact values and gives affective content to people. However, the contact is not enough, the connection is necessary, that is to say that any form of physical link is moved by a sincere affective force.
There are scientific fundamentals of contact therapies. We can mention, among many researchers, the following: S. Harlow, René Spitz, Rof Carballo, Lopez Ibor, Bowlby, etc.
The caress, therefore, is not only contact but connection. The therapies that do not have bodily commitment are dissociative, since they work only at the level of the conscience and not in the significant experiences of love and communion.
The affectivity, central nucleus of all the therapies, includes: the connection, the co-participation, the “we” of Martín Buber.
The trance is an altered state of consciousness that involves the reduction of the ego and regression to the primordial, to the original, in a certain way to perinatal stages. It is a phenomenon of regression to the initial states of existence.
The effects of trance are biological renewal, because during this state the biological conditions of the beginning of human development (more intense metabolism and awakening of the kinesthetic perception) and the first needs of protection, nutrition and contact are reissued.
For this reason, the trance exercises in Biodanza allow reparenting, that is to say, being “born again” in a context of love and care. Many adults carry within them a wounded child, an abandoned child, without love. Reparentalization allows healing in trance and rebirth ceremonies.
Among the resources of the Biodanza System, we have the innovative method of “suspension trance”, which allows access to the state of trance in a progressive and sweet abandonment.
The expansion of consciousness is a state of expanded perception that is characterized by reestablishing the primordial link with the universe. Its subjective effect is an intense feeling of ontocosmological unity and transcendent joy.
Biodanza induces states of expansion of consciousness through music, dances and meeting ceremonies. Having access to the “supreme experience” requires prior preparation and a higher level of integration and maturity. The procedures we use to induce progressive changes in consciousness are:
- Exercises to expand the perception of nature and people through the five senses.
- Exercises of kinesthetic pleasure to reduce the intervention of the ego.
- Exercises of slow fluidity with abandonment.
- Ecstasies and blistering exercises.
The group in Biodanza is a rebirth matrix that is integrated at an affective level and constitutes a very intense field of interactions.
Biodanza is not a solipsistic system or verbal communication. Its power lies in the reciprocal induction of experiences among the participants of the group. Situations of encounter have the power to profoundly change attitudes and forms of human relationships.
The form of integration of the group in Biodanza differs radically from the traditional group dynamics.
Prof. Rolando Toro Araneda