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 component individually exerts a transformative effect. When combined into a coherent set guided by a scientific theoretical model, they constitute a constellation of ecofactors with extraordinary effects, capable of influencing even the lines of genetic programming.
The pedagogical and therapeutic success of Biodanza
In Biodanza, music is rigorously selected to stimulate the ecofactors related to the five lines of experience.
We refer to “organic music” as those compositions that exhibit biological attributes such as fluidity, harmony, rhythm, tone, unity of meaning, and kinesthetic effects; these elements have the power to induce integrative experiences.
Because music can evoke intense experiences, its selection in Biodanza adheres to semantic criteria, namely its thematic, emotional, and experiential meanings. Music can evoke a range of sentimental emotions—erotic, euphoric, nostalgic, etc.—which, when danced, transform into profound experiences.
Biodanza has a repertoire of approximately 250 exercises and dances designed to activate human movements in a harmonious and integrative manner; it includes no dissociative movements. Our program features a set of sensory-motor and affective-motor integration exercises, as well as sensitivity-kinesthetic exercises. Another set comprises simple dances that stimulate experiences of vitality, sexuality, creativity, affectivity, and transcendence.
During Biodanza practice, music transforms into corporeal movement, essentially ‘incarnating’, and the dancer fully engages with the experience. This music-movement-experience synergy triggers subtle changes in the limbic-hypothalamic, neurovegetative, immunological, and neurotransmitter systems.
All these dances are ecofactors with a potent capacity for experiential deflagration. They mutually reinforce each other, and their collective effect contributes to the homeostasis of organic functions, regulation of the integrative-adaptive-limbic-hypothalamic system, and enhancement of life quality, promoting a sense of fullness and enjoyment in living.
The methodology of Biodanza is oriented towards the deflagration of integrating experiences, capable of overcoming the dissociations induced by our culture.
Currently, a large number of people experience states of psychosomatic dissociation. They think one thing, feel another, and act in a way that is dissociated from what they feel. The unity of our existence is in permanent crisis. It is through these experiences that the neurophysiological and existential unity of a human being is perfected.
An experience is an intense feeling of being alive ‘here and now’ and includes strong kinesthetic and emotional components. These experiences manifest different emotional nuances, such as euphoria, eroticism, tenderness, and inner peace, which contribute to the authentic expression of identity.
Experience differs from emotion. Emotion is a response to external stimuli and disappears when they cease. Experience encompasses complete existence, has deep and lasting effects, involves the organism 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 profound experiences that compromise the unity of our psyche are the original forces of life.
The rational approach to our conflicts does not resolve dissociative disturbances in depth; being aware of our conflicts does not change behavior. It is the experience of being alive, the cenesthetic perception of our body, and, ultimately, the possibility of ‘being honestly ourselves’ that permits an integrated and healthy existence. For this reason, we do not rely on conflict analysis but stimulate the healthy part of our identity through intense experiences, ‘the moment is the only place where you can live.’
The experiential methodology facilitates the integration process. Biodanza is, by definition, a system for integrating human potentials. Integration means ‘coordination of activity among various subsystems to achieve 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 cosmic time.’
“Biodanza is a poetics 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 a solipsistic character are a fallacy). The contact with others is what enables growth.
Verbal connection alone is insufficient. Necessary are the contact, the dance in pairs or groups, and the physical commitment within a sensitive, subtle context and with feedback.
Concerning the therapeutic and pedagogical effects of caressing, there are currently multiple scientific studies. Hundreds of authors have identified that contact not only values and provides affective containment to individuals but also that mere contact is not enough—a deeper connection is required, meaning that any form of physical link must be driven by a sincere affective force.
The scientific basis for contact therapies is well-documented. Notable researchers in this field include S. Harlow, René Spitz, Rof Carballo, Lopez Ibor, and Bowlby, among others.
Thus, a caress is not merely contact but a connection. Therapies lacking bodily commitment are dissociative, as they operate only at the level of consciousness and do not engage the significant experiences of love and communion.
Affectivity, the central core of all therapies, encompasses connection, co-participation, and the “we” of Martín Buber.
The trance is an altered state of consciousness characterized by a reduction of the ego and a regression to the primordial and original, akin to perinatal stages. It represents a regression to the initial states of existence.
The effects of trance include biological renewal, as this state replicates the biological conditions present at the beginning of human development, such as more intense metabolism and awakened kinesthetic perception, along with the primal needs for protection, nutrition, and contact.
For this reason, the trance exercises in Biodanza facilitate reparenting, allowing individuals to be ‘born again’ within a context of love and care. Many adults harbor a wounded or abandoned inner child lacking love. Reparentalization enables healing through trance and rebirth ceremonies.
Within the resources of the Biodanza System, we utilize the innovative ‘suspension trance’ method, which enables access to the trance state through a progressive and gentle release.
The expansion of consciousness is a state of expanded perception characterized by the reestablishment of the primordial link with the universe. Its subjective effect is an intense feeling of ontocosmological unity and transcendent joy.
Biodanza induces states of consciousness expansion through music, dances, and meeting ceremonies. 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 include:
- 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 intensifying exercises.
The group in Biodanza functions as a matrix for rebirth, integrated at an affective level and constituting a very intense field of interactions.
Biodanza is neither a solipsistic system nor based on verbal communication. Its strength derives from the reciprocal induction of experiences among group participants. Encounter situations have the potential to profoundly change attitudes and forms of human relationships.
The way groups are integrated in Biodanza differs radically from traditional group dynamics.
Prof. Rolando Toro Araneda