BIODANZA

Projections

A dynamic of feeling

Margarita Karger
 Copyright © 2017 Margarita Karger

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ISBN: 978-84-19294-02-9
De esta edición: Mandala ediciones
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 To all those I loved; to all those that loved me,
and to all those that I will love and will love me...

To my parents, two wonderful human beings who gave

me everything – happiness, protection, enjoyment -- and
surrounded me with beauty, art, books, mnemonic rules,
oriental proverbs and music, plenty of music. Antonin
Artaud said, “I am my Father and my Mother.”

To my sister, Anita. To my children, Jazmín, Gabriel and

Alelí, the three stars that light up my road who dedicate
their lives to psychology, music and modern art and
make the Biodanza Gestalt: art, science and love.

To my eternal teachers: Rolando Toro Araneda and

Rodolfo Ladaga Aramburu.

To a great Biodanza teacher, Mirta Schinini: Will the

music of the Spheres protect her and the trance drums
infuse our lives with the wisdom she gave us. Mirta,
knowing you made me grow.

My contribution to this book consists of material that

helped me spread the Biodanza throughout Spain and
other countries all these years, as well as historic jewels
that I kept and have shared, as the head of the Biodanza
schools of Madrid (since 1996) and the Canary Islands
(since 2004).
 Contents

Introduction
Prologue by Rolando ToroAraneda
Prologue by Dr. Rodolfo Ladaga Aramburu
1. My Passion for Biodanza. ......................................... 1
2. The Thousand and one definitions
of Biodanza.......................................................... 3
3. The Biodanza theoretical Model ............................... 7
4. What is its methodology? ....................................... 12
5. Who is Biodanza For?............................................. 19
6. The training process of a
Biodanza Teacher .............................................. 20
7. History of Biodanza' s birth .................................... 24
8. Origin and system foundation ................................. 25
9. Precedent, mythological and
philosophical reference...................................... 27
10. Identity and integration ......................................... 29
11. Implemented regression ........................................ 35
12. Bio-centric principle ............................................. 36
13. Biological foundation and
love biology ....................................................... 37
14. Physiology of emotions ........................................ 43
15. Relationship between a theoretical
model of Biodanza, divisions of the
autonomic nervous system, Hess model
and functional specialization of
cerebral hemispheres ......................................... 46
16. Affection, contact and caress ................................ 47
17. Biodanza and psychoanalysis:
an inevitable encounter ...................................... 50
18. Music, a magnificent road
to our being ........................................................ 58
19. Principles of corporal encounter ........................... 64
20. The place of beauty ............................................... 69
21. Meeting Rolando Toro.
Fine Arts Circle. Madrid,
March 2008........................................................ 73
22. Conference about desire and
its existential impact. Casa de America.
Madrid, 2002 ..................................................... 76
23. Biodanza for a better world.
Design and diagram of Paradise ........................ 85
24. Biodanza, a peace strategy
for our society .................................................... 88
25. The need and creation of
schools of Biodanza........................................... 89
26. Activities at Universities and
Public Institutions of Madrid ............................. 91
27. Activities of social support at
the Canary Islands ............................................. 92
28. First insular conferences of Biodanza ................... 93
29. A tribute to Dr. Jose Maria Poveda....................... 95
30. Biodanza's fields of action .................................... 97
31. A wonderful extension of Biodanza:
aquatic Biodanza ............................................... 99
32. Biodanza Jewels .................................................. 100
33. Notes ................................................................... 102
34. About the Author ................................................ 114
 Acknowledgements

To those who contributed to the creation of this book in support of

Biodanza: Alelí Mirelman, María Bosh, and Gema Llanes; three of my
life delights.

To Jazmin Mirelman, a (UAM) graduate in psychology, education

adviser of the Madrid and Canary Islands schools, Didactic Biodanza
teacher by the IBF for her loving, intellectual excellence.

To María Jesus Armas, Ph.D., in psychology (ULV) and Biodanza

principal of the Biodanza School of Madrid (IBF). coordinator and
school supervisor of Biodanza School of the Canary Islands.; Lydia
Estrella Rio, a UCM graduate in psychology, a (IBF) Biodanza teacher
by the Biodanza School of Madrid, for her sweetness, wisdom and
loyalty.

Furthermore, The Biodanza schools of Madrid and the Canary Islands

would like to express their gratitude to these beloved persons
who supported their existence: María Luisa Zubiarrain, Rodolfo
Ladaga, Moisés Plasencia, Gabriel Mirelman, Lourdes del Amo de
la Fuente, Roberto Mirelman, Guiomar Morales, Rafael
Dorado, Mariano Maqueda, Jose María y Jesús Poveda,
Raquel Torrent, Eduardo Chamorro, Carlos Pages, Patricia
Ghuisio, Edite Andrade, Cecilia Lopez, Hilda Berti, José Juan
Delgado Mendez, Mercedes Oriz de Roa, Andrea Bernad y Diana
Alcaide, María Teresa Forero, Gabriela Schon y Marisol Vera.

To all the students of training schools and regular groups, who motivate
and inspire me to develop new ways to learn through our effective
bond, proximity and mutual respect.

I would like to express my gratitude to my dear friend, Fabian E.

Larocca, for his magic appearance in this journey to translate a text of
such a young discipline, so full of wisdom, like Biodanza, and give him
the following poem written by Rolando Toro:
 The Game

Like a pregnant woman

that leaves everything to fate
and concentrates on herself,
all her life.
The game consists of,
simply, bearing fruit
this way we go far
sharing kisses and tears.

So, stranger and dearest Fabian, the game consists of, simply, bearing
fruit

Thank you, Fabian

You are the poem.
 Introduction

Since my first days in Madrid in 1991, after leaving my birthplace,

Buenos Aires, behind, I had decided to start my “mission” of spreading
the word about the Biodanza system. It looked as though I was
possessed by a passion and irresistible desire to share and teach
happiness and beauty. Now with the passing of time, I see the
resemblance to Virgil 's phrase:

“If I cannot move Heaven, I will raise hell”

If I had to define myself, I would do it with one of Jorge Luis

Borges' books, “El Hacedor” (The Maker). Nevertheless, my bundle of
energy would come across the same pitfall, year after year: Everybody
wanted me to write a book about Biodanza. Rolando Toro had books
published in Portuguese, Italian, German, and French. However, much
to our surprise, there was no publication in Spanish, his mother
language.
After living 18 years in Madrid, I eventually settled in the Gran
Canaria island and it was there, right in front of the ocean, that I
decided to write a book about Biodanza, the dance of life.
While at work, I received the wonderful news that the “Maestro”
was finally publishing his book, in Spanish.
My heart was full of joy and relief. I decided to resume writing this
book, which is an essay of hermeneutics, a partial truth, written with
passion.
“My truth will be that of lovers and, through their sincerity I will try
to show the magic” of this world heritage jewel.
This jewel, called Biodanza, has all the resources that human beings
need to be happy, become happier and more powerful, sort of like the
Spinoza' s method. It works like a courage stimulator to train us in the
art of enjoying life.
 Prologue by Rolando Toro Araneda ¹

This book brings the reader closer to the secret world of Biodanza, to
his ties with the origin to get back to the keys of existential plenitude.
Margarita Karger is a Biodanza teacher inspired by her love to
humankind.
It is a happy conjunction of intelligence and passion that invites us
to the development of a more loving world. With her broad vision, she
has selected essential subjects of the Biodanza theory, revealing
unprecedented technical aspects about transformation experiences.
This book addresses theoretical and methodological aspects of high
value for students of Biodanza and readers in general, and has been
conceived with poetic awareness, under the light of great poets like
Rumi: “Not only the thirsty seek the water, the water as well seeks the
thirsty,” and Rainer Maria Rilke in the description of the mystery of
existence.
The structure of her book has a memorable character in which texts
of related authors are included, such as those of Dr. Rodolfo Ladaga
Aramburu, outstanding thinker of the human mind; and those of Dr.
Jose Maria Poveda, professor of the University of Madrid, outstanding
scientist, a loved friend and a conscience-expansion researcher.
Besides, this book constitutes a synthesis of a lifetime of research
and educational work. Her ultimate purpose is to share her professional
experience and her reflections about subtle aspects of the affective
transformation process.
Her theoretical and methodological considerations are perfectly
consistent with the Biodanza theoretical foundation.
Margarita Karger's work constitutes a great contribution to the
methodological conception of Biodanza and the biocentric principle.
Prologue by DR. Rodolfo Ladaga Aramburu

When I read the first drafts of this book, I was very happy to see that
some concepts and human capabilities, such as thought and action,
ideas and corporal movements, reflection and sensuality, that had
historically been separated and even confronted, are here presented as
non-antagonistic. This antagonism, that presented human beings so
many obstacles and discomfort, is explained here as overcome and, is
harmonic and satisfactorily reunited. It is my understanding that said
conjunctions are the greatest theoretical and practical contributions of
Biodanza since, according to the experience of this discipline, you can
experiment them as “enjoyable encounters.” Proof of that is the ecstasy
felt during these encounters, both in Biodanza sessions and classes as
well as in the manuscripts of Margarita Karger and Rolando Toro,
founder of this discipline.
 1. My Passion for Biodanza

“The streets of Buenos Aires have

something about them …” 2

Around 1982, I worked in vocal therapy. In Buenos Aires, I was a

speech therapist in the former National School of Dramatic Arts, “A.
Cunill Cabanellas.” I was interested in every aspect of voice liberation,
bodily and emotionally, that I could learn. At that time, I was fascinated
with the research of Professors Lapierre and Aucouturier’s relational
psycho-motor activity.
One time, walking the city, I came across a friend of mine, and in
the very particular “porteño” style, we convinced each other to try our
latest discoveries. Fortunately, I was receptive to her invitation – mainly
because of her enthusiasm – and that is how I found out about
Biodanza. A few years later, we both were running schools for
Biodanza professionals.
The day of my first class, I entered a large room crowded with
wonderful people. While waiting for the class to start, I took the time to
observe the situations that were taking place, paying deep attention.
A young couple was sitting and facing each other, crossing their legs
one on top of the other while calmly and profoundly embracing … I had
never seen something like it. That embrace was different and lasted a
long time. It was not a lovers’ embrace, it was not a ritual hug or a
meaningless one. It was certainly as if they were exchanging something
from their souls.
The room was filling, people were smiling and wearing colorful
clothing while sharing hugs in such a natural way that I had never seen
before in an academic environment.
Soon after, the teacher arrived, a man wearing a smile and dressed in
white clothing, who approached me and gave me a hug, as if we had
known each other for a long time.
He was Rolando Mario Toro Araneda, the founder of this
magnificent system.
While listening to jazz, we started walking around the room. We
could feel freshness and happiness. First, we walked alone, then in
pairs, then in groups of three and then happiness started to spread
around.

1
 Then Rolando asked us to form a circle. As we weaved together, we
closed our eyes and quietly and sensually I started to hear, “Eu sei que
vou tea mar …,” a Brazilian song by Vinicius de Moraes and María
Creuza. That experience, that moment, was as though a magic wand
had touched my heart and my sensitivity.
That was how my passion for Biodanza started.

2
 2. The Thousand and One Definitions
of Biodanza

It is well known in philosophy that although definitions are explained at

the beginning of a learning process, we understand them at the end of it.
“Defining Biodanza is such a hard task, as trying to define love, art or
life. In my opinion, the exposition of multiple notes may give the reader
a general approach to a definition.”²
Etymologically, bios means “life” and danza, as per the French
philosopher Roger Garaudy's definition, is “an integrated movement
full of meaning.”
Let us focus on danza, the movement full of meaning, in contrast to
“lack of meaning,” and apply it to all possible fields, in order to
understand it. What do you feel in front of someone's meaningless
gaze? Or when someone gives you a cold, meaningless and
conventional kiss, or an unrequited love, without pleasure, or a
meaningless job, without motivation, interest, challenges or excitement?
We all have experienced it. To recover our meaningful movements
in our lives would be to get back into the dynamics of feeling; to do
what we do with sincerity, authenticity and harmony, with respect to
life.
“We can be absent, while being present. By looking, not listening,
not having physical contact, we subtly deprive the other of his identity.
We do not recognize the person in him: We are with him, but we ignore
him.”³ Rimbaud, the great French poet, used to explain it in a different
way: “He needed to experience all in his body, if he wanted to become
the poet of the century.”4
“Life is poetry,” our Master Rolando Toro expressed, and described
it as follows:

“Two lovers that run along the beach while holding their hands
are, according to our beliefs, performing a dance. A woman that
rocks her baby in her arms, is dancing an eternal rhythm. A man
that carries his child on his shoulders through a breeze, friends that
re-encountered after a long time and hugged, naked lovers that
share the ecstasy at copulation, farmers spreading seeds, a fetus'
heart beatings in the amniotic sac and even the railroad ties during
the night cadence, are all accomplishing their Big Dance.”5

3
 Biodanza, has an existential posture. It is interdisciplinary. It
comprises art, philosophy, anthropology, biology, physiology and social
studies.
How does Biodanza contribute to go along with our being and help
us find meaning to our lives?
A cognitive approach of Biodanza is not possible. You will find the
true meaning by living it, only.
Let us take a look at different definitions of Biodanza. You may
choose the one that has more meaning to you:

- The participation in a new way of living, full of intense personal

life lessons, induced by dance.

- A therapy for those with civilization illness, who lost the key to
the meaning of life and need to learn how to turn stress into inner
peace.

- A discipline of love-movement that restores the capacity to

connect with oneself, the universe and your neighbor.

- A way to free oneself from the numerous ways of external

authority.

- A technique that replaces tendencies toward death by

tendencies toward life, throughout the awakening of an essential
Eros.

- A therapeutic method based on an operative theoretical model

that induces conciliatory vivencias, through music, singing and
dancing.

-A technique that teaches how to dance your own life within the
broad cosmic dance.

-A discipline that aims to achieve internal control of our

evolutionary process making no reference to external guidance.

-A method to learn how to move, express yourself, connect and

feel.

- An access point to rebirth through implemented trance.

4
 - A therapy on full enjoyment of life.

- A system capable of restoring the identity of human beings.

- A conjunction of art, science and love.

- Master Rolando Toro' s definition of Biodanza is the following:

Biodanza is a system of human integration, organic

renovation, re-education of affection and re-learning of
functions that originate in life.

It is based on experience induced by music, dance and

situations of group work.

This definition is part of the essential meaning. However, it is not

necessary to explain it to those who wish to have their first experience.
Let us expand our knowledge of some terminology, for a better
understanding of Biodanza.
We defined Biodanza as a system. It is not only a technique but a
group of techniques. “The exercises are part of a system where the
effects can be controlled and arranged. The sequences come up with
guidelines that have precise goals. Biodanza is not free dance. A free
dance, performed under pathological structures, would reinforce
individual difficulty, at body level.”6
Human integration is directly related to movements full of sense that
we made reference to previously. When we can express an emotion
with its right movement, we are stimulating the integration of what we
think, with what we feel, wish and do. This connects us with life.
Biodanza has as an objective: the growth of our integration level. This
means listen to yourself, listen to others, and be aware of the universe.
If we observed carefully what goes on throughout a day, we could
better understand what all this is about: There is time for nutrition, i.e.
we have breakfast, lunch and dinner; a time for other activities, such as
work, education, exercise and shopping; a time to rest, to love, to listen
to music and relax. Well, we do all this in a session of Biodanza. We
become active, we rest and nourish by listening to different types of
music and perform different exercises, as well as alternate these
activities with gentle movements.
After a session of “relaxing exercises” in Biodanza, we achieve what
is biologically known as organic renovation. It reduces the stress and
produces a self-adjustment of our body. The re-education of our

5
emotional bond triggers the recovery of our instinctive connection that
all human beings have. However, in real life, the ups and downs,
sadness and failure often hamper this natural bond. In our path to
belong to our civilization, as we grow and receive education, we
restrain those natural and genuine bonding and affectionate expressions
that we had during our childhood.
Apparently, these teachings would protect and allow us to enter the
social circle. However, the lack of food-affection-love expressions, as a
part of the exchange, of giving and receiving, would isolate us even
more. Biodanza teaches us to exchange affection and expressions of
harmony. During a session, the link established with a classmate
triggers a domino effect that moves toward our closest circle, improving
easily – almost magically -- the way to re-encounter our own
expression, that had been lost.
Lastly, let us explore the meaning of re-learning the functions that
give rise to life. “The search of reconciliation with life leads us to the
fundamental movement, to our first expressions. This is the way
Biodanza brings our natural human expressions back; its task is to
rescue our lost and most inner secret: The connection's movements.”7
All this consists of recovering our instinctive qualities that have to
do with life, its protection and evolution; a combination of qualities that
are discredited and distorted due to social and economic motives, as
well as powerful interests that are in play and have nothing to do with
good health and life.
Biodanza helps to connect with the deepest and most profound
desires, as well as with unsatisfied needs. Or, as suggested by one of my
students, it allows you to be the active subject of your wish, which, in
my opinion, implies a continuous vital search. The fact of being in
contact with our wishes allows us to choose what we want in our lives,
wisely and consciously. What do I want to do? Where and who do I
want to live with? Mr. Fernando Pesoa8 said, “What we have never
dreamed of, wished or imagined, we will never have.”

6
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Every Biodanza instructor should be able to explain this concept to his
students, groups and to any person who decides to take her first steps in
Biodanza. The following is a graph that I used at my schools.*
(inphographic by Aleli Mirelman)

7
 Let’s consider a large tree and its roots in which, on the one hand,
we have roots that would represent the “Principle of life,” where our
genetic potential resides (encoded in our DNA), the moment of our
birth, and all the experiences that we went through when we were
babies, our proto-experiences.
Moreover, throughout our lives, there are different external elements
that influence on us, named by Rolando Toro “Eco-factors,” which may
be positive or negative.
In Biodanza, through the drive between identity reinforcement
exercises – when a heightened awareness of oneself occurs – and
regressive exercise – when a decrease of the cortical control occurs –
people balance their activity and rest, as well as stimulate and integrate
the experience and potential lines (see table on p. 29).
From my point of view, the great success of the theoretical model
that underlies all the action of Biodanza is a profound observation of
natural cycles through which a human being goes in every day of his
life. There is an awakening, activation, an energetic-tergotrópic phase,
and then, biology claims rest, regulation, balance, and repair.
These natural cycles, Kayrós, are distorted by energetic imbalance
states that respond to the stress of a civilization dominated by Kronos
acceleration. The lives of people lose natural references at an alarming
rate, so alternating work/rest is overshadowed by the lack of balance
and the tendency to extremes.
The theoretical model underlying the Biodanza class generates a
sympathetic-adrenergic stimulation that produces joy, energy, and
vitality through melodies and simple and fun exercises. In this way,
participants activate their limb-hypothalami system through the
connection, by linking themselves with states of harmony and
sweetness. Íntasis states of the being are stimulated.
In other words, you get into the time of the experience, in the most
original essence of each one of us, who are full of reasons to live.
Biodanza is a system that leads to ecstasy, so it reaches a timeless
state, with an expanded perception of absolute beauty.
The theoretical model of Biodanza has a stable vertical axis, which
is based on the genetic potential. The genetic potential must be
expressed about the plot of the five lines of experience.
Biodanza works with the experiences and emotions:

- Vitality: the vital impetus, the energy that each individual has to
face the world, the potential for balance, homeostasis, biological
harmony.

8
 - Affection: the exchange of love between human beings; the
affection that each person has to give to others, constantly. Being
affectionate is different from being sensitive. It is a more evolved
self and life commitment.

- Sexuality: the ability to feel sexual desire and pleasure.

- Creativity: the element of renewal, to be applied to one's life; to

create oneself and add creativity to every act.

- Significance: the ability to go beyond the ego and integrate

growing units; to combine ourselves, participate in joint actions,
albeit seemingly more difficult.

Each of these “lines of experience” draws from proto-experiences,

which are a product of what a baby experiences in its early stages of
life.
Vitality is related to proto-experiences’ motion and to activity and
rest functions.
Affection10 is related to nutrition and contact to give space.
Sexuality has to do with the contact, with the body's own pleasure
and that of others.
Creativity has to do with expression. Transcendence has to do with
fullness and harmony has to do with the environment.
On the horizontal pole, there is the continuum identity-regression;
that is, alternating identity’s expression exercises with regression.
The table on the next page, elaborated by Rolando Toro, describes
“The degree of transformation in the five lines of Vivencias.”

9
10
11
 4. What is its methodology?

It is the induction of integrative experiences through music, singing,

and movement, and through group work.¹¹
We know that the existential consistency cannot come from an
ideology, but the experiences in action. Our aim is to enable, through
group dance and communication exercises, deep harmonizing
experiences. The selection of such exercises and their methodological
structuring has taken more than twenty years of testing and research.¹²
This is achieved by entertaining through music and movement
exercises, which generate the experiences.
Put simply, the participant is provided – homeopathically – a subtle
series of exercises-movements carefully selected and accompanied with
some beautiful, deeply healing melodies. These melodies are picked by
musical semantic criteria; that is, they are selected by the effect they
have on people universally. Through them, basic, careful, and generous
love is administrated. “Biodanza works with experiences, not with
cognitive-verbal elaborations; that is, not only a logical or analytical
verbal understanding, but integral, at all levels, corporal, visceral,
emotional ...”
Therefore, in the second part of the session, it is important to follow
certain rules – like keeping silent – for the benefit of the group.
Biodanza is a ceremony, a ritual of anthropological value.
The term vivencia, as explained by Wilhelm Dilthey¹³, means an
instant lived; i.e., the emotions that we experienced after a vital and
unavoidable shock.
Experiences, as well as emotions, are neurologically represented in
our limbic system (neurocerebral) with their different anatomic
emotions and circuits (hippo-campus, amygdala and hypothalamus).
Body commitment is indispensable to experience harmony, unity,
fluency, eroticism and fullness. In Biodanza, integrative vivencias are
conceived within five lines of development or potentials: vitality,
affection, sexuality, creativity and transcendence.14

12
 Walking, jumping, hugging, rocking, talking, working, and making
love … these are all human movements emerged from the innermost
depth. Dancing is an alive and organic movement.

13
 “Dance is a deep movement that arises from the most endearing part
of a human being. It is a movement of life, it is a biological rhythm, a
heart rate, a respiration, a linking pulse to the species, and it is a moving
of intimacy. Dance is, therefore, the celebration of our community with
man and our legitimate joy of life. Everyone, perhaps without being too
aware of it, is dancing their life.”15
The music covers every living expression of natural or artificial
sounds with the qualities of rhythm, harmony, melody, and tone. It
includes the music of the sea, the wind, the forest, the birds singing, the
laughing, the crying child, etc.
No individual sounds, sound or noise preparations are used; such
elements, without unit or emotional coherence, untie isolated
mechanical responses or cause distress for their disintegrating effects of
isolated body parts. The music is carefully selected according to criteria
of the musical semantics to release certain emotions that, when danced,
lead the participants to what we call “Vivencia.”16
Singing is one of the most intimate and profound manifestations of
the individual. It involves its whole being. In my classes, I see a great
self-repression of participants in the natural expression of sounds, in the
act of singing, their voices accompanying the music; but as it is purely
cultural, when receiving an appropriate induction,
I get some participants who release their voices with confidence and
spontaneity. This causes much pleasure if they can integrate (thinking,
feeling, and acting) soul, heart, and life, and can be seen from the
expressions on their faces.
The group is essential in this discipline. There is no individual
Biodanza. The group is equivalent to a matrix in which are performed
regression and trance processes, communication and meeting exercises,
and especially, training in reciprocal approach, in feedback, when being
sensitive to other disposition. The feedback consists in making a
bidding or gesture of approach with your movement to get an answer
and adapt your proposal. The other is not available to us, at all times
and in all places. The sincere and sensitive invitation to enter the
linkage is an act that, regardless of the outcome, builds our identity and
reaffirms our self-esteem. The group is the medium through which it is
possible to learn the living human communication code.
Why can’t you talk during a session of Biodanza?
This important issue was studied in groups at schoolteacher training.
The task is to tell us how to explain to their students the importance of
silence, considering that talking or laughing is many times a way of
defense, but it seriously impairs the induction of survival.
Piluca Diaz17 told us the following story regarding this topic:

14
 “Professor, while I eat, I meditate to find the way. When I
read, I interpret to find the light. When I look at a flower, I
believe in the power of the universe. When I sing, I
appreciate the harmony of the stars ... And yet, I do not
feel peace, I do not find wisdom. How do you do to be
happy?

Where do your peace and wisdom live? Show me your

secret.”

The teacher replied, smiling, “When I eat, I eat, when I

read, I read, when I look at a flower, I look at a flower,
when I sing, I sing...”

He said afterwards, “This reminds me of Biodanza. Now we suspend

the word to make a way for the experience. When I speak, I speak;
when I experience, I experience, and,” he added, “that way I would
explain to my future students the importance of not speaking during the
vivencias.”18
At Biodanza, we are working with our nervous systems, and one of
the effects we want to achieve is to reduce the activity of certain areas
of the cerebral cortex and to activate other sleeping areas to achieve a
balance. This is impossible as we speak or chew gum, even if we
communicate with gestures or mimics.
“Biodanza, rather than a science, is a poem of the human encounter,
a new sensitivity to life. Its methodology promotes a subtle
participation in the evolutionary process.”19

15
 Outline of the circular motion of Biodanza exercises!°

The graph we see exemplifies the process of evolution of Biodanza,

showing some of the exercises the participant goes through. It takes a
while for learning, and for the experiences to be deepening, nourishing
and transformative. The exercises will acquire more new meanings and
scope as they are repeated, and new movements experienced in the
general class generate other movements in the life of the participant,
who is often the most surprised at the appearance of these changes.
When I started practicing Biodanza, it was just something fun and
since, this seemed to me very spectacular. But after a while I realized
that by repeating a series of exercises, the effects produced in myself
kept changing.
Biodanza aims, in a first step, to restore a more serene and innocent
attitute to life, so that the practitioners regain their basic
neurophysiological balance, relearn the internal tempo, rehabilitate their
digestion and breathing, get a relaxation for moving, learn to sleep and
discover how to have happy sex.

16
 The transformation of affective attitudes of humanity is the great aim
of Biodanza; the Dance Transformation – or of Shiva -- is one of the
exercises that stimulate this.
The Shiva’s dance is one of three dances we do to connect with the
power of the gods and goddesses; in this case, the transformative power
of Shiva. In Hindu mythology, Shiva-Vishnu and Brahma tell us, like
all myths, models of being and acting that we recognize from the
collective unconscious of our species. These archetypes-based dances
have been studied and interpreted by Carl Jung!#. In our task, we used in
the stimulation of certain instincts, abilities and possibilities.

Shiva-Natharaja, The Tandava dance

(Guimet Museum, Paris)

17
 Shiva symbolizes stillness, movement, destruction, construction, and
transformation. As seen in the image, the Shiva stands on one foot
while moving its multiple arms. In Biodanza, we use that archetypal,
existential position represented by Shiva to dance the balance and
imbalance of living in every step we take in our lives.
In the panel discussion on “The desire and its existential projection,”
in Casa de America, Dr. Jose Maria Poveda explained his interpretation
of the dance of Shiva:

“After my ten trips to India, I discovered that this Shiva-

Natharaja dance (Shiva-Natharaja means the friendly king
of dance, raja means king; Natharaja means royal dancer,
and shiva means friendly) symbolizes each one of us
dancing life from the desire. This also coincides with
modern ideas of psychology, such as constructivist ideas;
that is, each of us creates reality from that which is
striking for us: where we look, it expands to; what we feel,
it expands to ... And then, this dance is generated by the
fundamental reason of desire. Each one of the things we do
is animated by this dance.”²²

18
 5. Who is the Biodanza experience for?

This system can be applied to people of any age and condition. There
are different applications of Biodanza for groups with similar needs or
interests:

• Clinical Biodanza: It is the Biodanza system used for special

groups, who have different disorders.²³

- Biodanza and psychosomatic illnesses

- Biodanza and mental health
- Biodanza and visual impairment
- Biodanza and hearing impairment
- Biodanza and gerontology
- Biodanza and hypertension
- Biodanza and motor disorders
- Biodanza for pregnant women
- Biodanza for toxic-dependent
- Biodanza for obesity, bulimia, and anorexia

• Biocentric education: A philosophy that proposes, as a core of all

considerations, observation, and action, life above all. The image of
man, proposed by the biocentric education, is of the “relational
being,” “the Eco-being,” and “the cosmic being.” These qualities are
acquired by the development of affection.

• Biocentric System for organizations:

In addition to bringing Biodanza to institutions, this application

deals with learning the language and structure. It has the science of
management and the ability to make diagnoses of the problems of the
institutions and human relationships generated there. On the other hand,
it increases the level of business productivity by strengthening
emotional ties among co-workers.
• Other applications:24

- Biodanza applied to distressed couples

- Biodanza for gender groups
- Biodanza for adolescents at risk

19
 6. The Training Process of a
Biodanza Teacher

We understand the delicate technique of

responsibility of the professionals who study
Biodanza, and the sensitivity and assertiveness
required to achieve therapeutic purposes.

A process is the action of going forward. It is a path that has different

stages, a succession of phases. “A process is a set of attitudes, actions,
strategies, responses to the circumstances and reflections on one's own
actions that have taken place over a long period of time. This is not a set
of more or less appropriate actions, but a plan that has been built based
on practice and experience.”
In Biodanza, we understand life as a process in which the action is
permanent and the road we ride never ends ahead. It is a process of
affective processing. To become a Biodanza facilitator requires a lot
more than the accumulation of information or learning a methodology.
This transformation, which we have spoken of, was developed as a
result of the study of concepts and theories that are accompanied by
integrating experiences. This three-year period is required for the
initiation, deepening and radicalization of the experiences received. On
the other hand, the importance of attending regular classes during
training as a Biodanza teacher is that these students can internalize, rest
and strengthen all the learning received as teachers at the training
school. At this time, the students also thrive with what we call eco-
factors enriched by universal human environment.
We have been shaping our models from birth, and, as well, our
identity is constructed and reconstructed throughout our lives.
Therefore, if we wish to learn new affective attitudes, or modify the
existing ones, we must have patience, listening and tolerance, and to
know that we need time and effort to achieve it.
A moment of emotions must be monitored and also undergone by a
process of knowing, of oneself and others.
In the formative years, many circumstances have occurred in the
lives of students. We can talk, share, and transform by living together.
In the school I lead, we rely on four Gestalt values of group work:
respect, responsibility, honesty and commitment.

20
 Here are some testimonies of several people who completed their
education or are in the process:

“I trained at the School of Biodanza of Madrid. I

remember those days like a rebirth of myself, of my self-
esteem, of the world, and especially of the joy of living.
During those three years, besides of studying, I enjoyed the
experience of the group. We met every month to grow
together, to have fun and to join in all that was happening
to us. Many things or concepts proved hard; in addition it
seemed to me that the time was not enough with all that I
had to study and experience. I always remember Margarita
telling us that we should not rush, that eventually we would
understand everything ... Now I have been teaching weekly
classes of Biodanza for two years and I still feel I have so
much to learn. As a teacher, I was able to internalize many
things, make them my own, transform them, really
understand them, but there are many others that I do not.
As a human being I feel I'm the same. I am aware of the
process, the way in which I am, and that is really nice, to
be able to walk with no rush. I am who I am, I was born
where I was born, I have to change some things and I am
doing it, I also have to accept as many, and I am doing it.”
(Lydia Estrella, Biodanza facilitator
and coordinator of the School of Madrid.)

I started my training in Biodanza after six months of

attending regular classes. I was motivated to get into the
system that was bringing so many positive changes to my
life.
Now, it is just a year since I have attended training
seminars and weekly classes. Little by little I know and
have been assimilating the theoretical foundations of
Biodanza, understanding the scientific basis underlying the
process of the profound transformation that I'm
experiencing .
I am so excited that I also attend to supervision classes
of my fellows in the third year and, I have no doubt that I
will be an excellent Biodanza Teacher in the future, as they
are today.”
(Alegría Sanchez, student
of the School of Biodanza in Madrid.)

21
 I think it is a process that encourages people to feel
recognized and accepted for what they are, and that allows
the potentials of each person to develop no matter how old
they are. A process that reinforces the identity and self-
esteem cannot be achieved in a month. Biodanza is not an
alchemist remedy. It is a path that must be followed to be
effective and lasting. “
(Sandra Dotor, student
of the School of Biodanza of Madrid.)

During this period of training, a single program of subjects is followed.

1. Theoretical studies
2. Conferences on related topics
3. Experiential deepening and radicalization
4. Methodology
5. Supervised classes
6. Social action
7. Development of a monograph
8. Ceremony, degree and diploma as Biodanza teacher

The experiential theory modules are, as follows:

1. Definition and theoretical model of Biodanza

2. Biocentric principle and vital unconscious
3. The experience
4. Biodanza’s biological aspects
5. Biodanza’s physiological aspects
6. Biodanza’s psychological aspects
7. Biodanza’s mythical and philosophical backgrounds
8. Identity and integration
9. Trance and regression
10. Contact and caresses
11. Human movement
12. Vitality
13. Sexuality
14. Creativity
15. Affection
16. Significance
17. Biodanza’s mechanisms of action
18. Biodanza’s applications and expansions
19. Biodanza Ars Magna

22
20. Biodanza and social action
21. The music in Biodanza
22. Methodology I (musical semantics)
23. Methodology II (Biodanza session)
24. Methodology III (Biodanza session continued)
25. Methodology IV (intensive and weekly course of Biodanza)
26. Methodology V (the Biodanza group)
27. Methodology VI (criteria of evolution of the development in
Biodanza)
28. Methodology VII (official list of Biodanza’s exercises).
29. Group dynamics seminar
30. Vocal training seminar

23
 7. Origin of Biodanza

Rolando Toro said that he had no intention of creating a technique or a

therapeutic system. Biodanza was being designed, to his own surprise,
as the secretion of his own illusion, and poetic. It was the development,
the production of a thought, and a great desire to make his environment
a warm and happy place for everyone, linking the most sublime arts --
music, dance, and poetry -- combined in a high level of aesthetic
refinement.

“The conceptual basis of Biodanza comes from a

meditation on life, or perhaps desperation, desire for
rebirth, of our shattered gestures, from our empty and
sterile structure of repression. We could say with certainty:
the longing for love.”

24
 8. Foundation and Origin of the System²⁶

The theoretical model of Biodanza is based on clinical experience with

psychiatric patients. Toro conducted an early research with music and
dance with mentally ill people at the Psychiatric Hospital of Santiago de
Chile.
At the Center of Study of Medical Anthropology, they had among its
objectives to test various psychotherapy techniques to humanize
medicine: psychotherapy groups in the line of Rogers, art therapy
(painting, theater), psychodrama, Gestalt therapy, music therapy, etc .
“Humanize medicine:” This statement of intent is the first data that
prompted to me in 2002 to lead the dream of nominating Rolando Toro
and his work of Biodanza for the Nobel Peace Prize. My dream kept
going, though, as Rolando said, “The award to life, to be alive, we have
won it already, Margarita”.
Rolando Toro's proposal consisted of including body activity to
stimulate emotions through dancing and group work. He organized
dancing sesions with patients at hospitals. He suggested harmonious
and slow-paced dances with psychiatric patients, keeping their eyes
closed, with the intent to provide harmony and tranquility to these
patients. However, this brought counterproducing effects, as patients
were led to regresive states. Hallucinations and delirium sharpened, and
could last several days.
During this early experimentation phase of trial and error, the master
started to adjust and balance the system.

“Undoubtedly, the sick people that, by definition, have a

poorly integrated identity got disassociated even when they
performed movements that induced regression. This result,
apparently negative, actually suggested a strong mobilization
of the contents of the unconscious.”

In subsequent sessions, he suggested the euphoric dances from

joyful rhythms that stimulated the motor. The result was an increase of
reality testing and the disappearance of delusions and hallucinations that
they had at the beginning.
These early experiences formed the basis for the construction of an
operational theoretical model in which regression exercises were

25
located in one end, and on the other, the reinforcement of identity from
euphoric dance.
Both sets of exercises presented specific autonomic responses:

“- Euphoric exercises that stimulated the identity gave

sympathetic-adrenergic responses.

- Regression exercises in slow motion induced cholinergic-

parasympathetic responses.

IDENTITY. Euphoric exercises. Sympathetic-adrenergic

activation.

REGRESSION. Exercises in slow motion. Cholinergic -

parasympathetic activation ...

So, the first axis of a theoretical model that eventually would be

refined, was designed. The terms identity-regression seem to set a
pulsating continuum.

26
 9. Mythological and philosophical
background and references of Biodanza²⁷

“Biodanza contains in its conception the legacy

of a wisdom that was lost over time, and that
was the essential intuition of the people at the
dawn of humanity.”²⁸

Biodanza takes some references of the great ancient myths and

archetypal figures which display the highlights of eternal human needs
to celebrate life. These ancient myths and archetypal patterns, applied
to a contemporary version, represent an extraordinary inspiring force in
the building of a civilization of the future.
In Biodanza, we were inspired by myths that speak of nature, the
presence of the extraordinary vegetation, the sea or the mountains, the
rites of initiation in the mysteries of life and death, the exaltation of
fertility and the expansion of consciousness that constitute the legacy of
the goddess Demeter, Mother Earth. From this metaphor, Biodanza
works in connection with the Earth through the dances, the abundance...
Another source of inspiration is the ecstasy through pleasure of the
god Dionysus, the hedonistic philosophers, and the Garden of
Epicuro29, who worshipped the pleasures of everyday life, the body as a
source of pleasure for oneself and for the other. And as they cultivated
the art of love and joy of living, in Biodanza, we also insist on the
continuing pursuit of the pleasure in motion and ecstasy, releasing deep
instinctive potential through the dance, enjoyment, and the taste of the
loved bodies. Joy is a good of humanity, of every being that, only
existing, is a miracle. To seek happiness and to dodge the sadness is a
way of life given by Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) in his philosophical
writings.
In each session of Biodanza, people get the joy of life and learn to
walk through sadness, to accept it and to redirect it, avoiding entering
the continued enjoyment of pain.
The legacy of Orpheus, with the power of music, poetry, and dance,
is able to induce transmutation processes that are deeper than those of
transformation. Music has that wonderful ability to dilute the pain
producing states of calm and stimulating the ability of making life

27
erotic. And, as we know, music is the mediating instrument we use in
Biodanza.
Biodanza collects countless philosophical sources of an eclectic
way.
Hedonists taught that pleasure is the universal and fundamental
objective of any effort. Originally, referring to pleasure, it not only
meant sexual pleasure, but also the highest forms of joy, mental
pleasures, domestic love, friendship and ethics satisfaction.
Pythagoras’ integrated vision of the universe inspires the cosmic
harmony and integration of feeling, thinking, wishing and acting in
Biodanza.
The fluidity, the uninterrupted, the slowness, the eternal return and
ongoing rebirth of the universe are the legacy of Heraclitus, and we
translate it into performing movements in slow motion.
Similarly, love for our neighbor, the profound respect for the
humble, and mercy represent the legacy of Christ.
Carl Gustav Jung cites the apocryphal Gospel of John, in which
Christ dances with his disciples. This action reflects a pattern of
connection with the wonderful and the joy of life as something natural
in the human being.
Biodanza is rooted in this deep observation and selection of myths
and philosophers, which are in line with the beauty of life.
Other hedonistic philosophers also participated “in the legacy of
wisdom,” mentioned by Rolando: Friederich Nietzsche and Aristippus
of Cyrene.

28
 10. Identity and integration

A fundamental work of Biodanza is the rehabilitation of the

participants' identities. This is accomplished by stimulating their
potential to enable them to have information about their preferences and
encouraging them, moreover, to act on their uniqueness, unique and
unrepeatable. It's the center from which we experience the world and
we differ from it. It's the awareness and experience of being.
Identity will be structured eventually, over the course of our
existence. That's why it is so important to understand the relationship
between identity and time.
When the great Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, was asked
during an interview what was the nature of time, he answered, ''It's what
I would like to know. It's what I have tried to find out my entire life.”
And he clarified, “As in the Confessions of Saint Augustine in which I
reflected, 'What is time?' If they don't ask me that, I know it. If they ask
me, I ignore it.” And he continued, saying, “It's an essential perplexity
for me. It's the problem of our personal identity. I can think of myself,
only about the Borges³° that exists at this moment. I could be any of
you, but I'm not you, I am Borges. I am also my past, but part of this
past has now been forgotten. But nevertheless, there is something of it
that persists. There lies the mystery of time, which is seen clearly in the
case of personal identity.” And he asked, “What is it that makes
someone be the same for the most part of the time, if one has forgotten
a big part of the past?''
What is remembered of the past is minimum and almost everything
is forgotten. “We have thousands of perceptions, nostalgias, memories,
hells, heavens, every day and of all those things, some images remain,
nothing else.''
Jean Piaget believes that the identity changes all the time; it is not
static. Although we're the same kids we were, we are now different but
we continue perceiving as ourselves.³¹
From our point of view, there is no I-am-myself position taken by
many disciplines that focus on the individual - but the I-You by Martin
Buber³², which introduced the us. People light the significance of
themselves in each other’s presence. In the Biodanza session, the
participant, itself, is perceived as another, more beautiful and more
illuminated, and also realizes the beauty of others. We recognize

29
ourselves as a part of the species and of the whole. Therefore, Martin
Heidegger speaks of being - with another³³.
Often, I hear that, “first, I have to be good to relate with others,” and
in Biodanza we think, “I relate to be well, because the more I relate the
more I know myself.”

“Biodanza does not work with the concept of ego. We do

not want even the Jungian concept of self. We work with
the concept of identity. This is a very strong reference, a
dynamic concept by which your essence is manifested in
the presence of another at meeting the other.”34

In Biodanza, the identity is the body. It flows through our body and
is permeable to the music and touch. Music penetrates so that the
person becomes some kind of channel, and thus you are the music, the
people poured into the music you are hearing. These proposals by
Rolando Toro³⁵ enshrine the ideas of Yehudi Menuhin, Don Campbell,
Alfred Tomatis and Michel Imberty, which propose Mozart, Bach,
Vivaldi, Debussy effect as an indispensable element in the teaching
training since childhood.
On the other hand, the concept of “identity” cannot be separated
from the concept of “regression” from the Biodanza theoretical model.
We can increase our identity to act in the middle, or decrease and
gradually go toward regression. The identity of each one is unique and
different. However, in a state of integrative trance (the one proposed by
Biodanza), we experience identical to another; we perceive our
common essence. This essence is the point between identity and
regression: the subject returned to the undifferentiated and perceived its
own identity as part of the overall identity.
In Biodanza, the integration process is done by stimulating the
primary function, which is the connection to life. This connection
allows the elevation of the quality of life and the effects on its
existence, which also produces a deep and lasting change that
strengthens the integration with oneself, with the species and the
cosmos.

Identity and Love

As Master Rolando Toro said, love, seen from the perspective of the
matter of identity, is the drama of two identities struggling for unity and
continuity in the creation of a greater identity.

30
 When making love, the subject dilutes its identity to blend it with the
other person. That brings pleasure and fear.
Rumi, the Sufi poet, expressed with great beauty the inevitability of
being in the world and the challenge that lovers have in recovering their
identity after making love.

Come, my sweetness
Let's love each other,
Until there is no trace
Of what you are and what I am

Integration

“... Connect music with the body, with psychology, with emotions,
with poetry, with the visual arts, with sociology, with ethology ... In this
integration, the boundaries of different disciplines start to erase and we
get into an integral vision of man, but a shattered vision.”36
Achieving increasing levels of integration and evolutionary self-
control represent the highest aspiration of Biodanza, a therapy for
“civilization” patients who have lost the keys to life and must learn to
transform the pattern of stress in a harmony scheme.

“Those who have not achieved basic levels of integration

of their identity cannot try integration processes without
taking the risk of dissociation.”37

This was revealed by Martin Buber, as we saw when speaking of

integration of I-You, and the emergence of us. All our identity is in
connection with the Other; this is where it is revealed that our Biodanza
identity is not a development alone, it is “with, for and in the other.”39

31
 The biocentric vision of the world brings hope to the survival of the
human species and its access to the fullness.

32
 The conception of a dissociated world and the catastrophe of the
evolutionary process of man.

33
 We could say that the complex and delicate biocentric concept of
integration is the ending process to which the development of the lines
of experience are going. Integration is, basically, the combination of the
five lines of experience; i.e., mutual, dynamic and creative interaction
that occurs when these five channels of human potential grow.
A first approach to the concept of integration was given by L.
Binswanger,40 remarkable existential psychiatrist, when he said that
every individual should integrate to themselves, to other individuals,
and to the universe. If he does not integrate into any of these levels, he
is seriously ill. By saying this, he was making a first approach to the
idea that a simple specialized development of some functions was
pathological, and gave the following example, which contained great
wisdom, and at the same time, ingenuity: “A well- integrated man,” he
said, “can be a good violinist, who also likes to go fishing on Sundays
and can be a good lover, too.” Binswanger was referring to what we
know as the vivencia lines of creativity (he is a violinist), vitality and
importance (he likes fishing) and emotional health and sexuality (he is a
good lover).
He was interested in the possibility of a modern man who could
escape from specialization, the stagnation in a scheme or lifestyle, so he
began to wonder to what extent patients were integrated into themselves
and not dissociated, how far this individual could integrate with other
people through love, sex, communication, and nature.
The person who attends a Biodanza session has already been crossed
by the inevitable process of growth, education and civilization; hence,
the majority presents varying degrees of dissociation. Since we were
very young, the messages are colored by a division between what we
sense, in that great multi-sensory spectrum that babies and children
have, and the mandates that are constructing, deconstructing and
destroying us.

34
 11. Implemented Regression

In Biodanza, regression symbolizes a return to experienced mental

states in prenatal and perinatal periods. Regression, in Biodanza, is
implemented, it’s controlled, gradual and harmonious; it only occurs
when the participant authorizes and accepts the experience. It is a
“biological regression in which physiological and primordial patterns
are reactivated and inroads are being repaired and rested.”
In human beings, the possibility of regression occurs at all levels.
Each individual has his channel, his mother, which overflows and
returns.
In Biodanza, we do not find ourselves in the past or in the future. We
find ourselves in the wonderful mystery of life as it is happening. It’s
where we retake the lived experiences, above all symbolic or rational
processing, the raw data of our identity, as in an eternal present, out of
time and space.
The regression reinforces homeostasis, (balance and stability of the
system). This means that developments in Biodanza are not linear but
circular, evolved in each turn of the evolutionary spiral which describes
the constructed theoretical model. (R.T.)

35
 12. Biocentric Principle

“Living in love is living in the center of life,

and living in the center of life is living in love.”41

Rolando Toro introduced the biocentric principle as a new paradigm for

the human sciences. This is based on a reflection that considers life as
the origin of the universe. From this point of view, the universe exists
because there is life. Implicitly, the human being exists because there is
life.
The biocentric principle leads to a behavior that respects life and all
its manifestations: in itself, in others and in the universe. It is urgent to
defend life for life to be respected and ennobled!

36
 13. Biological foundations and
biology of love

Biology is one of the base sciences that sustain Biodanza. Between their
disciplines, those used by its creator are astrobiology, molecular
biology, evolutionary biology, and especially, ethology.
Biodanza puts forward the observation of the cosmic man, leaning
on the theory of everything (TOE), trying to set up a new image of man
in which all aspects are represented: the psychological, the organic and
the cosmic.
Rolando Toro studied various theories of astronomy and cosmology
based on a vision of the universal unit of living things, to understand the
biocentric principle.
It also takes the concept of autopoiesis of Humberto Maturana,
Ph.D., in biology from Harvard, a very important benchmark of
Biodanza. It also takes the theory of Santiago de Varela and Maturana,
to propose the concept of unconscious life and the cell psyche.
Humberto Maturana said that human beings are the fruit of
cooperation for conservation, not the struggle for survival.

“Bioevolutionarily, we are because we love.”

“Bearing in mind those millions of years of evolution that
turned us into beings that need to have presence; be seen,
be heard.”

It is precisely our task to put the wisdom of science into action, and
it is what we do to stimulate people to relearn, to take a look in the eyes
and to be regarded, be present when they are with each other, because
we all need to embrace and be embraced.
Self-regulation is another key concept of Biodanza. All living beings
have self-regulatory systems that ensure homeostasis (internal balance).

“The disorders in the ecological regulations produced by

civilization, are examples of this phenomenon.”42

37
 There are specific features in some biological processes of human
beings that are related to some very important concepts of Biodanza:

The Study of biological aspects of Biodanza:

- It bases the principle of ecological and emphatic

integration on all living things.

- It bases on a systemic approach (nonlinear

networks, the interaction of all parts with the
whole, and vice-versa).

- It answers to the “meaning of life” without

resorting to mythical, religious or philosophical
foundations.

- It allows one to understand the possibility of an

ontological evolution (an expression of genetic
potentials throughout life and the conditions that
favor it).
$%
Biological genesis of the vivencia lines

“The structure of the lines of experience is at the crossroads of the

psychosomatic unity. Experience lines are channels where biological
programming and its psychological expressions travel, in relation to
vitality.
We have lost our connection with instinct. This is a serious
biological disturbance, because instinct is the ancestral wisdom, the
very pulse of life.
We lost our vitality through a long historical process of our
civilization,

38
 Vitality is generated through a set of functions aimed at maintaining
homeostasis, balance, in relation to our survival instincts of hunger,
thirst, and fight and escape responses.
The line of sexuality has its genesis in the complex mechanisms of
sexual differentiation and function of the gonads and genitals. It
generates sex drive and orgasmic function, desire and pleasure seeking,
and the many emotions related to the production and satisfaction of the
instinct.
It is also easy to understand the biological origin of this second line.
The line of creativity is linked to the exploratory instinct and
impulse of innovation that are present in living organisms.
Living systems exhibit phenomena of creation of life in every
moment and every point of the system. Cell assemblies are not
mechanical, but are governed by innovation in every moment of our
life. This has been demonstrated by current research on immunology
and cell biology.
Sets react with absolute consistency to changes in the external
environment. This adaptive and integrative process is quite creative.
Furthermore, ethologists study exploratory behaviors of animals of a
very primitive degree in the zoological scale.
The innovative impulses inherent to living systems reach with
human creativity.
The affection is related to the instinct of solidarity of the species,
gregarious impulses, altruistic trends, and bonding rituals.
Cell biology also demonstrates the existence of real cell
communities that make up biochemical actions of molecular
cooperation.
Living systems are powerful, coherent mechanisms with principles
of affinity and rejection, of which each part fits in at the service of the
biological unit.
Jakob von Uexkull44, scientist and genius, suggested that individuals
of a species are the organs and that the species, itself, is the body.
Thus, an individual dissociated from the species represents a
condition for all.
In human beings, these biological impulses of cooperation,
integration and solidarity lead to altruistic feelings that constitute the
genesis of love.
With regard to emotions, if we start from the ecological approach,
we could define wise love as a process of realization in which each
member is a trigger that encourages the mutual and permanent
recognition of the other.45

39
 Lastly, we come to the realization that from our approach it has
biological roots and an instinctive infrastructure.
Tropism (attraction) and biological resonance that integrate even
larger ecological systems constitute the very condition of life. The
search for harmony in a cosmic totality is an organic function which
culminates with the experience of profound peace.
The urge for transcendence is visceral and an intense experience
involves profound changes in the homeostasis (balance of our system).
Our proposal indicates that all these aspects, which were considered
part of the psychic sphere, traditionally, also have a biological origin.
They are generated by intimate cellular processes and ascend by
differentiation as impulses and instincts that, in human beings, become
experiences, emotions and feelings.”
Biological renewal

“If biological systems were not able to return to a

primary stage of development, i.e., an embryonic
stage of their structure, the organism would lose
one of its most important safety mechanisms.”46

One of the effects of regression exercises has certain similarities

with biological re-progression, described by ethologists A. Kortland,47
in a simple way: it would be a way to return to the origin, as Jean
Cocteau said: “A bird sings best in its family tree.”48
This produces a state of expanded perception of the inner and outer
beauty. It is quite possible that this statement may be very strange to
those who have not been crossed by the experience of a session or series
of Biodanza sessions.
Rolando Toro referred to the existence of a vital unconscious and
from my experience in working with the elderly, biological renewal is
one of the most striking effects of Biodanza, promoting cellular
rejuvenation and renewal, manifested outwardly in an increase of joy
and hope, as well as a state of greater well-being.
As we have seen, Biodanza adopts integrative trance as a tool to
access these regressions, and certain specific exercises, too. But, what is
integrative trance?
First, we must define the concept of trance. Many have seen images
of some implausible ceremonies in the media, which they call trance.
Most of these ceremonies are totally far from what trance is, from our
understanding. In a class of Biodanza, a conciliatory and implemented
trance requires to close your eyes, to connect with the inside, to relax, to
feel confident and receive an induction stimulated by appropriate music

40
in order to enter into a different space-time. This trance has two safety
valves: the first, which is an integrative trance in which the elements
used (music-movements and word conductors) must favor, only the
state of integration of the participant. Simultaneously, the phenomenon
is implemented by a facilitator, who knows how to induce it and close
it. The second safety valve only occurs when the participant wants and
authorizes to do so. Trance is an altered state of consciousness that is
used for healing purposes.
Rolando Toro spoke of poetic trance. To him, as well as to many of
us, life has a poetic essence: “Poetry allows us to feel the mysterious act
of living, and a perception of the universe as a current creation.”49
Rolando conducted ethnographic field work in various parts of the
world, but no way to enter trance states was satisfying to him. Neither
trance observed resulted in an organic one nor agreed with the
epistemology of Biodanza. Integrative trance, in Biodanza, is crossed
by affection. Biodanza sides with human affection, and its rite delivers
an immemorial message through trance, and thus, a deeper
understanding of the human mystery is reached.
Trance is restoring. It allows the body to relax and restructure,
creating a new point of balance of muscular tensions, thus reenacting
the general tone of the body.
The brain is an endocrinal organ that secretes endorphins
(endogenous opioids) during states of deep regression, reducing the
painful perceptions and stimulating feelings of pleasure. The
neurophysicists who studied altered states of consciousness have
discovered that these states of regression increased the balance and
harmony between the right and left hemispheres.
At the time that this return to the origin occurs, human beings
experience what Kortlandt discovered. This biologist and zoologist
noted that there was this species of birds called cormorants, which go
through a similar process that human beings do to take a new step in
their existence. Specifically, he found out that in the hours before taking
the first flight of their life, they needed to be close to their mothers.
In the trance of Biodanza, the instructions given by the teacher to
induce the experience, never refer to problems of in-uterus or early
childhood traumas. In Biodanza, the strategy is to expand the light that
people have to retrieve all memories and experiences calmly and in
harmony.
In conclusion, among the effects of Biodanza that occur at an
organic level, another significant effect is the global integration of all
functions of the body, due to the slowdown and involuntary driving
force, as the body moves as a unit (recovery of the slowness concept in

41
people’s lives through exercises with such slow movements that are
named slow-motion or fluency; meaning the recovery of memory of
fluidity which we are born with and that allows us to protect our
psycho-physical balance, having a large anti-stress effect); finally, the
optimization of autonomic neuro-vegetative self-regulating mechanisms.
The output of regressive trance has the quality of a “rebirth.” The
Biodanza trance has profound effect of “re-parenting.”50

“During the state of trance the perception of body limit

decreases; the experience is profound harmony, egotistic
arrogance disappears51 ... “states of anxiety disappear and a
feeling of fullness and love of life is reached.

42
 14. Physiology of emotions

“Scientists and researchers, never forget that,

among your calculations, diagrams and equations,
man and his fate should be the main objective
of your research.”52

One of the first books I read when I started my training in Biodanza, in

1982 in Buenos Aires, was The Body Has Its Reasons by Thérèse
Bertherat. This title opened -- and keeps opening -- a new and necessary
meditation for me: Every movement of our lives is the expression of
our existential frame. From the conception of Biodanza, every move I
see and like in the other generates a processing chain that allows new
moves in my existential project.
According to H. Wallon, “There is a basic relationship between
movement and intelligence.53
Let's analyze the following aspects:

All Biodanza exercises are intended to re-establish the organic

balance. But why is this balance lost, sometimes? Often, this
happens when someone feels guilty, which means debt,
psychologically. Other times, it’s by the clash between morality
and ethics, which externalizes the struggle between duty to do
something for the imposition and to want to do something, that is
desired.

Biodanza acts on the self-regulating balance through alternating

stimulation in the exercises, in the adrenergic-sympathetic
(activity, games, strength) and parasympathetic-cholinergic (rest-
slowness-nutrition) systems.

Evoking special experiences performs the stimulation of the

limb-hypothalamic region simultaneously with the reduction of
cortical activity. Verbal language, visual and motor activities are
functions that are temporarily reduced.

43
 Biodanza seeks that during the meeting, a neuro-vegetative
adjustment and a sympathetic-parasympathetic balance occur.
While the limb-hypothalamic or archi-encephalic regions are
stimulated by special experiences, a decrease of cortical activity
occurs.

The polarity of identity exercises through games of vitality and self-

assertion in touch with exercises of regression, such as affection. Giving
space and rounds of communication and rocking exercises creates a
state of balance in the participant.
P.D MacLean (1978),54 in his theory of the “triune brain,” described
three types of morphological phylogenetically structured brains: arch-
encephalic (brainstem, instincts), paleo-encephalic (límbic system,
emotions), and cerebrum (cortex, thoughts).
Biodanza undoubtedly tends to integrate these three brains and
especially activates the older ones, which, because of culture, have been
devalued.
Until recently, it was considered that there was a native
predominance of the left hemisphere over the right; this is a social issue
rather than a neurological one.
Western culture stimulates the development of the functions of the
left hemisphere over the right. The creative person is one who has
integrated the two hemispheres55.
Both hemispheres work through a reciprocal inhibition system,
controlled by another cerebral level. We “approach” to the external
world “through a quick alternation of each hemisphere of the brain. It is
as if one of the two hemispheres turns on and off when the other does
the opposite. The pace of this process and the procedure of one party
over the other could be the key to explain the different styles of
knowledge. (Body, brain, culture.)”56
Some authors combine the theories of duality functioning of the
cerebral hemispheres along the model of the Hess ergo-trophic systems,
in order to analyze and explain the phenomena of ritual behavior and
state of meditation:

Ergo-trophic: ergo57-trophic

Any inner process of the nervous system that produces an energy

expenditure and the sympathetic nervous system as waking,
escape or fight response states.

44
Increased heart rate, blood pressure, sweat secretion, secretion of
adrenaline, epinephrine, increased activity and emotional
reactions.

Tropho-trophic: tropho58-trophic

It generates inactivity of the parasympathetic nervous system,

which regulates the vegetative and homeostatic functions.

Attenuation of heart rate and blood pressure, constriction of

pupils, secretion of insulin, estrogen, androgen, etc.

45
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46
 16. Affection, contact and caress

Paul Valery tells us, “The deepest thing in man is the skin.”59
Often, we greet, shake hands warmly, and we say goodbye with a
ritual kiss, but we rarely hug; perhaps only in some celebrations or
goodbyes.
The hugging emotion has an irreplaceable quality, in the vicinity of
the other, in mutual giving and receiving affection, holding it in all its
“humanity,” to assume spiritual and bodily. The hug has a very special
touch to reconnect, to unite us. And, rather than to sexual, it alludes to
the fraternity, a generous union between beings, and the universe.
Hugging is a sweet medium to perceive the other, not only as a
neighbor, but as a fellow. Through the hug, it is possible to reach the
trance fusion of two identities in a larger identity.
The hug in Biodanza is an act of encounter of self and with the
other. It is not the pseudo hug of couples dancing to music in a room,
but an act of subtle reciprocal fusion. To make this possible, a
permissive attitude and a sincere desire of receiving the other are
needed.
Now, whom do I hug? It is easy to hug beloved ones, but it is more
difficult to do it with a stranger. It's hard to hug a beggar or a madman.
Each person discovers, in its ability of hugging, its humanization level;
its degree of socio-emotional evolution.60
From my point of view, affection is the spine in Biodanza. It is what
really makes the difference. What captivates, constantly surprises, and
has always moved me, in Biodanza, is the courage to rescue and defend
the caress.
I’m quoting here a poignant verse of my friend, Jorge Aleman: 61

“...From a country I came, where

Men tremble in terror when touching a woman.”

Numerous experimental studies confirm the value of the caress or,

better said, the terrible effect of the lack of it. The caress is healing and
restorative ...; and few disciplines, or perhaps, any other – consider it as
a healing tool.
The skin and muscles are the body’s boundary, and continent of the
identity. Their functions are, therefore, to set different permeability
levels with the environment and other people’s bodies.

47
 Caresses can separate, as well as connect, allowing the fusion with
the other. During all these years of experience, I found the relationship
between emotional and erotic conflicting factors, and their
manifestation in disorders and other dermatological diseases. Clinical
and experimental research is pointing to new lines of evidence and to
support contact therapies, too. In a repressive society like ours, where
the tyranny of sexual prejudice is manifested at all levels, the
appearance of contact-caress therapies represents genuine hope. The
role of caress as a therapeutic pathway has a historical-anthropological
and experimental clinical affiliation.
Many of us know two poignant stories of the premature twins: the
healthy sister balances her sick sister after hugging her in her incubator
(“The Rescuing Hug,” Reader's Digest, 1995)62 and the one of the baby
operated on within the womb of his mother, who takes its little hand
and firmly grasps the surgeon's finger.
In Biodanza we propose the concept of caress, to call things by their
real names, and thinking that, by its effects, the caress should be
included, without delay, in psychological and neuro-physiological
terminology.
How to regulate learning, development and evolution of the caress
within a therapeutic group? How to prevent any inhibited student from
being invaded in its body freedom by an uninhibited student? Where
should I limit the caress of what I want to do? And how does one report
the degree of approximation that is desired each time? All this strategy
is expressed in the art of the Biodanza instructor and the wisdom used
to lead the session, although we have some “basic principles.”
Biodanza is a “poetry of human encounter,” a ceremony of enchantment.
The emotional encounter takes healing quantum effects by
mobilizing hypothalamic-limb centers that regulate the organs. The
emotional encounter stimulates the production of neuro-peptides and
increases the effectiveness of the immune system.
The human encounter is an act of awareness of the expressive and
communication functions that put into action the linking circuits in
feedback.63
Finally, we must realize that the human encounter is a heartwarming
ceremony of releasing the unconscious.

48
The skin

Not rubbing the skin with the skin will make it crack.
Not touching the lips with the lips will make them dry.
Not crossing the eyes with no eyes will make them close.
Not feeling the body with the body will make it lost.
Not delivering the soul with the soul will make it die.

Bertolt Brecht

49
 17. Biodanza and Psychoanalysis:
an unavoidable encounter

Professor Rodolfo Ladaga Aramburu says, “I am a psychoanalyst, and

psychoanalysts work in an isolated bubble of the world trying to
produce a cure in terms of acts of words and listening. The job of an
analyst is to combine what he associates and the interpretation, which
may shed some light, and when I contacted the School of Biodanza in
Madrid, they showed me the act of desire put on the body, put in
motion as Aristotle used to say, put into action. And not the action of
the word only …
“I resisted strongly, I must confess, because it was a considerable
jump, but there was something that fascinated me during the
experience: the way Biodanza facilitators stimulate, guide and help
bring out the desire and make it constant; and it not only applies to
teacher facilitators like Margarita and her colleagues, but also with the
participants of the group who helped me. What I discovered in this
totally different system are the diverse situations of sustaining the desire
for the other; but what is striking to me is how real it is in practice and
not just in theory.
“In Biodanza they invite me to the movement, they smile to me, and
they caress me with their eyes; that's a really fantastic experience. I
consider this transformation therapeutic in its highest and most rigorous
scientific level.
“And the encounter of desires appears. Not as happened to Robinson
Crusoe, who, when trying to avoid a maddening loneliness, had to
invent a subject, whom he called Viernes64, to tell him about his life. In
the Biodanza session it was the permanent cross-linking of desires, and
that is therapeutic.”65

Biodanzologists and psychoanalysts: A passionate encounter

I often ask students, “Is Biodanza a psychotherapy?” The answers

are usually multiple. The definition of therapy involves etymologically
“help.”
“Biodanza, beyond being a therapy, is the poetry of the human
encounter.”
It has a projection that covers the range of human existence,
stimulating all the potential for the participant to find alternatives and to

50
be able to enjoy what he/she already has. Enjoying and caring about our
own treasures would be the proposal of the dance Vishnu.
Vishnu is, in Hinduism, the god of preservation and life cycles, and
Rolando Toro, according to other research, such as, The Power of Myth,
by Joseph Campbell, developed this dance, too.
The central idea is that “the beauty66 of the permanent generates
security and confidence. At dawn, it is the same sun appearing to give
life every day; every night, the moon in darkness; the same sequence of
the seasons; the remarkable stability of the stars in the sky; the loved
ones remaining within us, the happiness of seeing the same faces of the
loved ones.” This harmonious dance is performed with the beautiful
Aria of the String in G by Johann Sebastian Bach (adaptation of August
Wilhelm j).
“If it is possible to grow the bright and healthy side of a patient, the
dark side (symptoms) tends to disappear.” Taking Antonin Artaud' s
phrase, Biodanza is driven by a “kind of will of light to illuminate the
insistent darkness,” since it works with the healthy part of the
participants, with their sketches of creativity, with their remains of
enthusiasm, with their oppressed need for love, with their hidden
expressive capacities, with their sincerity.
Facing the complaints of the student, his/ her depression, anguish,
the teacher has to avoid comments, interpretations, and cordially invite
him / her to dance.67
Many times, it was asked to Rolando Toro whether he was a
Freudian, Reichian or Lacanian (to which I would respond, with humor,
that he was a plate with all those elements and some more on it), and he
would reply that Biodanza was not an isolated conception in the context
of the current psychology.
Biodanza theory has nurtured many great ideas about psycho-
genesis, embryology of behavior, psychoanalysis, psychosomatic,
psychology of identity, psychology of expression, etc. What is
important is not the trend or methodology of certain psychological
schools, but the integration of the ideas that have emerged about the
human being, about the dynamics of its psyche and behavior.

Freud developed four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis:

The transfer, the repetition, the drive and the unconscious.

The transfer: the relationship with another person in which you
suppose she has knowledge for the disciple and the teacher of Biodanza.

51
 The repetition: discover the subject, despite he is trying to be
different with everything experienced in Biodanza he repeats what he
has been in his life (phobias, shyness, insecurities).
The drive: everything that a human being experienced as pleasure-
seeking for himself or another.
The unconscious: everything that happens to us, without knowing
why. The latter represents Freud's the great discovery.
J. Lacan, a great student of Freud, gave a reinterpretation and
modernized the theory of the human subject. The repressed drive,
according to Freud, generates the formation of symptoms. The potential
of the subject is inhibited by his illness, neurosis or conflict. When the
transformation begins, symptoms tend to disappear and the repressed or
inhibited potential reappears. Freud said that a baby is a bundle of
instincts, a perverse polymorphous. From my point of view, the adult is,
too.
The instinctual being is erogenous in reality, in the body. According
to Lacan, the body has a relational power with others, which gets
excited, eroticized and thinks with the other. There is always a body
effect of repression. The body is at stake when repression is present in
the subject. Desire is not drive. It is what it is subtended; i.e. below the
drive. “Desire is a permanent line of dissatisfaction:” In this statement,
Freud, Marina Ladaga, perhaps Rolando, and I, as biodanzologists,68
agree - and, in turn, it is the engine of all human creations, as G.
Deleuze69 says in the “Anti-Oedipus.”
That lack is precisely the engine to achieve what we need to find and
fulfill our wish. This is a great learning in Biodanza, since it assumes –
from the same praxis -- the transformation of the lack we have, in the
action to achieve the object of satisfaction or a substitute that could
produce a satisfaction. And that is the engine of the cure, that action,
act, activity to make up for what is missing.
Biodanza works with needy beings. Actually, all beings are devoid;
Lacan says “The pain of existence is due to the lack of Paradise,” so
“the human being suffers from an erogenous pain to exist, and in the
words of Toro, ‘Facing the pain of existence,70 Biodanza wants to
gently brighten this tragic and poetic process of EXISTING.’”
Let’s break down the term to exist.
The prefix EX = EK (from the Latin) etymologically means out. The
word exit – out / be independent / outside of … autonomy – has the
same root, and sist is the root of the word system, which “exist” is to go
outside of the mother's system. It is to be born with all the hope and
opportunity that this represents, but also it includes the inevitable loss
that it entails.

52
 We talk of happiness a lot. While the fullness of happiness is a myth,
an Einstein reality, relative, some sparks of happiness, it is something
we have to conquer every day. And for that you must have in your hand
the map of your desire, your paradise, and your welfare.
An example of how to conquer your happiness is the extraordinary
challenge proposed by the Minotaur Project (Biodanza extension) of
“asking for love.” It is perhaps the most difficult challenge that a person
may face in the Olympics of sincerity. I will describe the exercise,
which is a great ceremony. A round, in silence, is formed and the
person according the scheme of the tree of fears, sets the fear of
confronting its desperate desire for love moves to the center, and
looking at the eyes of the participants, says:
“I want love, I need love, I want love, I want your love, I want to
love and to be loved.” I know that readers will agree with me that to say
those words in public is not easy, but I can assure you that whoever is
able to verbalize something as important as “asking for love” will get it.
When in a session of Biodanza, during a sweet hug, the psychic
apparatus is at the service of the imagination, the dancer says to
himself, “The other loves me.” If the dominance of the psychic
apparatus is real, there are bodies that hug each other and feel softness
or stiffness, warmth or coolness.
From psychoanalysis, in the recognition that gives me another
person, my desire to exist, happy and joyfully, is generated. In a session
of Biodanza the student is, more than ever, accepted, recognized and
loved as he is.
In most of Lacan’s work, much importance is given to the look, and
this is correlated with the session of Biodanza. It is the field of the
visible that builds the subject, and not just the word. In Biodanza, the
look dilutes the repression described by Wilhelm Reich71 as one out of
the eight characterological armors that the subject has. In this way, the
individual gradually regains its ability to see and be seen through
sincerity. And here occurs the festive, the celebration of life.
Hereafter, a comparative analysis between psychoanalysis and
Biodanza by Professor Rodolfo Ladaga Aramburu:

Cross-links with psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis
This proposal is made predominantly with the symbolic. The body
does not come into play, cure by the word (if there is a cure).

53
 Biodanza
In this proposal there is a predominance of reality.
It allows, from what is real, with the bodies of one and the other, the
event of the dance-movement-encounter.
There is a break of the repression at real level and also on a symbolic
level. A posteriori symbolic elaboration occurs after a while. At the
beginning of the following class we make a verbalization of findings of
oneself in which the word reaffirms what was lived; this is called
“living story.”
Biodanza is a psychoanalytic therapy with predominance of reality,
although the symbolic also appears. The symbolic are all words that
turn in the heads of the participants during the Biodanza session.72

Poetic language as a therapy

In Biodanza, we do objections to the “analytical elaboration of

experiences.” Our observation shows that this analysis leads to a shift of
the defenses to inaccessible places for therapeutic manipulation. After
the verbal elaboration, the problem persists, but it is no longer
important for consciousness.
The language conjures up terror. When monsters and ghosts can be
designated by a name or understood as mechanisms, they lose their
terrifying characteristic. The word fulfills the function of exorcism and
can produce stimulants, hallucinogens, anxiety, or thymoleptics’
hypnotic effects. The word has, undoubtedly, and as liberating the
symbolic level, neuro-chemical powers.
Our objection does not refer to verbal language in general, but to the
analytical linear form of association by continuity frequently used by
some methodologies. ''We postulate73 a poetic language that transcends
the word in its syntagmatic sense74. We propose an iconic poetic
vision75 that promotes with accuracy and depth the semiotic fact76,
remembering that this is not synonymous of the linguistic fact.”
We propose to address the defense system in its pre-verbal levels
through body movement proto-language77, the primal choir, the scream,
the crying, and some onomatopoeic expressions linked to instinct. In
such conditions, it is easy to disassemble archaic defense mechanisms
and replace them by behaviors that take place within a context of
maximum safety and loving solidarity.
The explanation of a mechanism alleviates, but cures. Human
problems can be addressed, certainly, at symbolic level through poetry,
where the word actually performs the vital, creative synthesis, capable
of providing access to a profound change.

54
 The scream as a poetic form, the proposed policy, the elegy78, the
love song, inducing states of cosmic consciousness and ecstasy through
poetic language, are powerful elements used in Biodanza to cure the
existential anguish.
The shaman poet, the poet biologist, the teacher of Biodanza or
biodanzologist, have access to the manipulation of hidden defenses on
the symbolic level.
If we wanted to allocate the poets to the theoretical model of
Biodanza, in the great constellation of symbols of the collective
unconscious, which is at the same time the conscious awareness of
mankind, we would make the following proposal:

A. Poets of the vitality line:

Walt Whitman79
Saint-John Perse80
Federico Garcia Lorca81

B. Poets of the sexuality line:

W. S. Burroughs82
D. H. Lawrence83
Pierre Louys84
Violette Leduc85

C. Poets of the creativity line:

Stéphane Mallarmé86
Edith Sitwell87
Ludwig Zeller88
André Breton89

D. Poets of the affection line:

Gabriela Mistral90
Pablo Neruda91

E. Poets of the transcendence line:

Novalis92
C. Milosz93
R. M. Rilke94
San Juan de la Cruz93
Amado Nervo96

55
 This classification is only approximate, because the great creators
integrate all lines of experience. We could also group them as follows:

A. Identity
Paul Valéry97
Stéphane Mallarmé
Vicente Huidobro98
Octavio Paz99
Virginia Woolf100
James Joyce101
Ezra Pound102
Haroldo de Campos103

B. Integration
Novalis
Friedrich Hölderlin104
Lubicz Milosz
Rainer Maria Rilke

C. Regression and trance

René Daurnall105
Antonin Artaud
Allen Ginsberg106
William Burroughs107

D. Gene expression
Pablo Neruda
Gabriela Mistral
Saint-John Perse108

At the symbolic level, poets are the therapists of the human species,
full lucidity visionaries who raise, through verbal language, the
liberation process and spell of the chaos
For those who remain prisoners in small problems and in the
immanentism of an alienated life, Viktor Frankl proposes a high level
psychotherapy. Rilke teaches us how to achieve that perspective; poets
give to neurotic mankind a cosmic point of reference, a new form of
identification and a sense of the transcendent.

56
 When Rilke expressed in his poem his experience about the growth
in concentric circles, he performed there the endless spiral model of
Bach Cantata:

I live my life in concentric circles

Which grow and raise from the world
Perhaps the greatest circle will never close
Despite my effort.
I turn around God on this ageless trip
From millions of years ago
Who am I? I do not know yet.
A falcon, a storm, or a huge song?

57
 18. The music, a sumptuous path
to get to be

Novalis, the great German poet, said that every disease is a musical
problem, and the cure for every disease has a musical resolution.
Biodanza music has large, transforming effects, because it is the
universal language capable of crossing the defensive barriers that we
generate in our mind and takes effect on our body.
“Through Biodanza, I filled my life with music, so those moments of
silence seemed to me like simple breaks.” Biodanza’s music has a
central place. Participants will identify themselves with different kinds
of music; they let themselves to be guided by the rhythm to the point
that the distance between the sounds and the perception of themselves
decreases. The dancer feels he is the music. This would be related to the
full movement of meaning, in the frightening and overwhelming act of
being and not being.”110
Music produces a state of ecstasy, it is the Via Regia, that is, the way
consciousness becomes the vivencia and the viviencia returns to
consciousness; and it is also the phenomenon of the musical
identification, the one that makes us understand the body-soul unity, the
psychosomatic continuum, the connection with the visceral, and the
poetic language.”111
As mentioned above, in a Biodanza class, the account of vivencias
always takes place at the beginning. People are learning to talk about
life, in a different way, they are training in neurolinguistics
reprogramming, in a new way to express themselves. They manifest
what they perceive from their changes and they listen in a respectful
silence to what each participant “tells himself.” It is a way of
communication that we call “excited speech,” “a new sensitivity to your
existence.”112
To narrate the experience is an option. It never implies an
imposition. Here, people have the opportunity to hear and share with
colleagues some revelation that their experience or effects of the
previous session have produced in them. Being able to put this into
words is a great foundational value that has the language from the
Lacanian’s point of view. The language opens new participants’
perception about themselves.

58
 In conclusion, it is not true that in Biodanza, the word is not used,
but during the experiential part, the music, the silence and the teacher's
voice operate on the mind of the participant and subsequently give a
clarity that helps express their identity. The dancer can relearn how to
make decisions, to choose, to give, to offer, to receive, to share and to
trust.

Music-movement-emotion: a unitary structure113

The effectiveness of an exercise of Biodanza lies in the deep

integration between music, movement and experience. These three
factors constitute a Gestalt in the strict sense: an organized whole in
which each of the parties is inseparable from the function of the whole.
In Kurt Lewin’s##& definition: a system whose parts are dynamically
linked, so that changes in one part cause a change in all the others.

The semantic separation116 of these three elements constitutes the

experimental graphic reproduction of schizophrenic dissociation, in

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which perception, emotion and mobility function independently. A
criterion for the diagnosis of the levels of dissociation would be the
description of the mismatch between music, movement and expression
of the participant. Rolando Toro's observation resembles the description
that J. Lacan makes in the Borromean rings when it comes to the
psychic apparatus. He explains that psychic reality has three records:
the real, the symbolic and the imaginary. In the psychic apparatus, these
three records must be tied and bound. When they are untied, as in
diagram number two, there is a serious condition called psychosis
(catastrophic effect).

With this I explain the correspondence between the three rings

described by Lacan -- real-symbolic-imaginary -- and our three
Biodanza rings, which are music (as symbolic), emotion (as imaginary),
and movement (as real).

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 “The interaction between music-movement-emotion is evident when
the same exercise with different music is performed. The result is the
emergence of different experiences. For example, the exercise of pelvic,
chest, and head centers integration, which aims to reinforce the
response loops between the erotic, emotional and mental aspects, can be
performed with different music. If movements are executed with the
Andante of Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, by J. S. Bach, an experience
of profound harmony and an increase of the cosmological conscience is
obtained, ‘a knowledge of the world that is around us and contains
us.’118”
Body integration becomes a transcendent experience. What do I
mean by this? The subject produces an experience that leads to
overcoming the barriers which enclose him in a limited self, which is
the current disruption in human beings. That disturbance has a name. It
is called stress-confinement-repetition-routine-boredom. An exercise
conducted with the Brazilian song, Graças a Deus, by Fernando Cesar,
performed by Maria Creuza, produces a state of body integration, with a
strong erotic tinge.”119
To explain it, I insist on the integration of the three centers
mentioned above and the symbolic link through thinking; with
imagination through desire, and reality through movement.
The experiences can also be disturbed, promoted or exacerbated by
group situations. The subtle mirror of the mind can be clouded by
almost imperceptible situations; for example, the proximity of a toxic
person.
In the dynamics of the groups, as cited by Enrique Pichon-Riviere,
some people inadvertently annoy the group activity and also annoy
themselves. He called them “group saboteurs” (toxic is wanted, but it
hurts). “The group structure has crucial elements: It can be permissive
or repressive, toxic or happy, harmonious or dissociated. Experience
patterns that trigger experience must, therefore, have an extraordinary
and intentional burden to preserve their effective essence, despite these
disturbing factors . A dance of communication, held in different groups,
can induce fraternity, eroticism, guilt and even aggression. All these
experiences, however, belong to the field of communication and
affection.”120
Faced with these considerations, we understand the delicate and
technical responsibility of the teacher of Biodanza and the sensitivity
and assertiveness required to achieve therapeutic purposes.
Often, a question arises: Is it possible that the same exercise has
equal effect on different people and circumstances, problems or other
diseases? The answer is obvious: Each person in the exercise will have

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a different resonance and some will be more mobilized than others.
However, the scheme inductor will always point to one of the five
major centers of the experience.
Thus, a type of music, coupled with a certain exercise, will produce
in every member of the group related experiences, although of different
intensity and nuance, according to the degrees of repression and
sensitivity. Also, advanced students, within a group of beginners, will
live the experiences cited by the inductor model more intensely,
because their ability to feel is provided and the repression is diminished.
It represents an unfinished task and constant improvement to
discover and select the music that can better integrate a bond with the
movement, emotion and experiences wanted. The music and the
exercises program for Biodanza are the products of careful and patient
work of selection and research, which has been delayed more than forty
years, and has been conducted almost entirely by Rolando Toro.
We could say that a poorly chosen type of music might enchant us,
the group would like it, but it may not have the transformative effect
that we seek; it would be like giving a child a candy: Despite the fact
that he may like it or it may amuse him, it will not feed him.
To meet the demands of our theoretical model, it has been necessary
to create many exercises and group situations. Some of them are
variations or modifications of existing exercises in other disciplines.
The sequence of fluidity, for example, was inspired by the techniques of
Tai Chi. Some contact exercises are based on tantric disciplines or
massage techniques, relaxation and awareness. Physiological studies of
the organic effects were carried out, as well as a phenomenological
study of invoked experiences, in order to achieve harmony in the
system. Some of the dances were inspired by findings in, contemporary
dance, rites and primitive trance ceremonies, lamaist choirs and
traditional physical exercise. Also, pictorial art influenced Rolando
Toro's work. For instance, the exercise of the Eutonia circle that
connects each participant by the fingertips of their forefingers was
inspired by the Italian painter Sandro Botticelli's painting, Spring
(1478), and can be performed with Antonio Vivaldi's, Flute Concerto.

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63
 19. Principles of body contact 121

When two people are close, looking into their eyes, smiling or hugging,
it sets a “resonance field” that always triggers some kind of deep
physical response. Getting close to another person changes the muscle
tonus¹²² and produces modifications in the rate that hormones enter the
bloodstream, in the enzymatic processes, in the alertness levels, in the
perception, in a few words, in the whole organism.
The closeness of two people is not a childish phenomenon. It is a
very particular kind of fusion of cosmic energy. The first is called
“tuning,” and it is related to multiple concepts contributed by modern
psychology, such as “empathy” (T. Lipps)¹²³, “tonic dialogue” (J.
Ajuriaguerra), “Eutony” (Gerda Alexander)¹²⁴ and “affinity” (Rolando
Toro). The closeness of two people is a transcendent phenomenon. As
Antonio Artaud said, “This union of two nervous magnetisms is
something mysterious and fatal.”
At that time, different degrees of intensity, attraction, hesitation, and
rejection are produced. Therefore, the first moment of the bodies'
encounter is with the other. The long process from the meeting to a full
union with the other begins with the tuning by issuing a series of signals
through the eyes and mouth, gestures and the closeness. It is important
to note that the ultimate purpose of the meeting is the union, that is,
“enter into trance” with the other and blend two identities into one. It
means to blend the individual identity into the identity of the couple.
Through the union in orgasm, the human couple becomes a cosmic
couple, entering the Whole. The fusion is the “Maithuna” of the tantric
yoga. Communication is not enough and we are not interested in the
orgasm as a stress reliever, the ultimate experience is the loving fusion.
The conventional approach to sexology has created some kind of
obsession with the orgasm. Thousands of people are distressed because
they do not reach orgasm. Thousands of books on impotence, frigidity
and sexual response were written. This obsession with orgasm is the
greatest source of frustration and dissatisfaction of couples who, of
course, have lost the sense of what is a deep and charming human
encounter.
Why are two people naked in a bed? If they aim for an orgasm at
that moment, they will fight for reaching “their orgasm” as soon as
possible. If, on the contrary, the goal is to enjoy that moment of deep
intimacy, full of confidence, enriching caresses, identifying each other,

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exacerbating the intensity of touching themselves, unconditionally
abandoning to the other, exciting the voluptuousness, the tenderness,
triggering subtle loads of pleasure, so the orgasm arrives suddenly, in
the intoxication of kisses and caresses, the orgasm is just one more gift
of the encounter. At the time when the body limits dissolve, identities
are melded and they enter a larger whole.
Consequently, the first notion of the body encounter is to understand
that its purpose is the union, as both communication and orgasm are
simple aspects of a much broader process.
To achieve union with the other, Biodanza offers an emotional and
physical preparation that consists of twelve principles, which are
different types of dances and personal contact exercises.

The twelve principles of body closeness

1. Tuning (initial magnetism)
2. Mutual initiative
3. Synchronicity
4. Fluency
5. Tonic dialogue
6. Eurhythmics and reciprocity (ratio by feedback)
7. Integration
8. Diversification
9. Compression – Decompression
10. Unconditional support
11. Expressivity
12. Encounter

The exercise of the encounter has the character of a rite of bonding

and is one of the most important Biodanza exercises. The encounter is a
learning process of the closeness, communication and contact
behaviors. The bonding can be perfected only in a ritual meeting.
It is necessary to distinguish between normal encounters of daily life
and ritual encounters held in Biodanza sessions, accompanied by
appropriate music and in a context of intense emotions.
The experience of the encounter is relearning to an emotional level
that encourages respect, reverence and tenderness toward others.

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 Can two people who did not know each other and do the exercise of
the encounter, in a session of Biodanza, wake up to a completely new
experience in which the “strange” becomes a “similar?” This exercise
stimulates an undifferentiated form of affection which tends to slowly
reduce the discriminatory behaviors and prejudice. Thus, an affective
universal space is open.
During the experience of the encounter, the manifestation of the
identity of the two people involved in the exercise intensifies. Everyone
is going to the encounter with their emotional energy. When hugging is
done, the energies are combined and a third energy is born of different
quality and greater emotional intensity. The exercise of the encounter is
an existential experience, in which the emotional interaction with the
other facilitates and enhances the self-perception.
Objective: to give the situation of encounter a ritualistic quality, in
which it is possible to discover new forms of emotional communication
and contact. The most important aspect of the encounter is certainly the
experience of receiving and being received, which implies a
quantitative and qualitative increase in the emotional energy of each
person.
The exercise of the encounter induces the passage of a possible state
of solitude into a state of emotional communion.
Description: Two people are gradually approaching, eye to eye, to
hug each other. After a moment of emotional interaction, both slowly
separate from each other with a delicate gesture of greeting.
Affective communication is carried out progressively, using hand
signals acceptance and welcome. These signals are transmitted through
the eyes, smile and gestures of acceptance and greeting.
The basic condition for the exercise of the encounter is the rule of
feedback: reciprocal gestures of acceptance and closeness. If one of the
two people involved in the exercise expresses a strong emotional intent
while the other discreetly expresses limit signs, an encounter situation
that does not involve any other form of corruption must be sought.
It may happen that one of the participants is not sufficiently and
affectively prepared to receive the other. In this case, an overly intense
encounter can be perceived with a hint of violence. We define this as an
“invasion.”
Learning the feedback rule prevents the invasion, because it involves
sensitivity and respect for others not to be invasive; that is, the ability to
clearly express limitation signals to not be invaded.
It is important that the exercise of the encounter is done with
escalation. To which, it is proposed, during successive classes, other
forms of preparatory encounters and involve little physical contact.

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 These preparatory encounter forms are, as follows:

-Encounter by approximation
In this form of encounter, two people progressively get
close until holding hands, keeping their arms along the
body, closing their eyes and approaching the foreheads
until they touch gently.

-Encounter of hands and eyes

Two people approach gradually and hold hands, looking
into their eyes. When separating after the encounter, they
slowly go away with a sweet salute.

Contact and caresses have emotional and visceral effects in our

body. The lack of touch produces serious distortions of body image.
The relationship with our body is conditioned by contacting with the
other. We live our physicality when we caress and we are caressed.
We consider “contact” as therapeutic, as long as the extent that body
contact especially the caress, activates, mobilizes and strengthens our
identity. Our identity is projected into the skin, and with it, our limit
perception. If our body limit is insensitive, our true identity is altered,
concealed or imprisoned. To transform our skin into a body capable of
projecting and irradiating our identity is vital.

Effects of caress on body self-regulation:

-Changes occur in the limbic-hypothalamic response’s

thresholds; it means there is more response area of the brain that
stimulates emotion, rest, and eroticism.

-There is a harmonization of the sympathetic-parasympathetic

balance (neuro-vegetative balance), resulting in a state of balance
and tranquility.

-A compensation of the ergotropic-itrofotropic systems is also

produced; the participant has more energy and also desire to rest
when needed.

-It is further observed an elevation of homeostasis, that is, the

intraorganic balance as the proper regulation of body temperature.

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 “In the caress, there is a dialectic of give and take, there is always a
physical commitment. It is an act of intimacy par excellence. Its
dynamic is a pulsing circuit of reciprocity, seeking the desire to give
and receive” (Rolando Toro).
Caress is an integrative act, since it hosts and adapts to what it is
found, as is characteristic of water.
To a deeper level, the caress has the wisdom of the availability of the
opening to be with the other: it becomes delivery.
We appreciate ourselves through personal contact and caress. We
can be the other's desired subject. The result of it is an increase of our
self-esteem. Actually, a caressed body becomes luscious, i.e. attractive.
To caress and be caressed are the intimate recognition of our values as
unique living beings.

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 20. The place of beauty

In the thought of the heart, with his great intellectual brilliance, James
Hillman underlines the urgency of returning the soul into the world, so
we feel part of it, as we establish a closer and deepening relationship.
I want to introduce this section with a beautiful poem about beauty,
by Hermann Hesse:125

The other half is up to you:

Half of beauty depends on the landscape,

and the other half on the person who looks at it ...
The brightest sunrises,
the most romantic sunsets,
The most incredible paradises,
you can always find them on the face
of the loved ones.
when there are no clearer
and deeper lakes than her eyes;
when there are no wonder caves comparable to her mouth,
when there is no stronger rain than her tears,
no sun shining brighter than her smile...
The beauty does not make its possessor happy,
but who can love it and worship it.
That is why it is so nice to look at yourself when those faces
become our favorite landscapes.

When talking about the transforming effects of Biodanza, for me

there is an inevitable association with beauty. Many authors of all time
have told us about it. For example, the great artist, A. Artaud, said that
the poetic word arises from the experience. The experience of Biodanza
gives us a perception of beauty to such an extent that poetry and science
merge in such beautiful phrases like: “We are children of the stars.”126
This refers to a cosmology of human beings. This thought is beauty; we
are all united in one eternally dancing cosmology. In turn, this cosmic
beauty is embodied in each of us. As in the solar system, all celestial
bodies dance in their space and have their brightness each of us
expresses, through our own light, our identity.127 I always tell my

69
students that each of them shines by my side with their singularity and
luminosity; and that diversity is wealth.
In a Biodanza session, the participant feels different. He/she
perceives him/herself with beauty, so his/her self-esteem elevates. “The
love for yourself is the beginning of a romance that will last a lifetime.”
When affection explodes, it organizes all our perception, so that we
find our beauty and our partners.
A biological and cell renewal occurs in each session of Biodanza, an
experience of rebirth, an embellishment of the skin, eyes brightness and
vital momentum is generated.
In short, a deep and overwhelming desire to connect with life.
The human being has an irresistible beauty. It has a hidden splendor,
but such supreme beauty produces fear.
Plato and Socrates, like other great poets, believed that beauty would
venture into the cosmos of Aphrodite, as aphrodisiac, in order to
penetrate the old notion of aesthesis, which is the opposite of being
anesthetized. It is the expression of the feelings produced by the
aesthetics.
In the experiential state proposed by this system, we connect
ourselves with our essence, with that wonderful child waiting in the
background of every being, to love and be loved. With Biodanza we are
learning to look at our own splendor, as well as discover the splendor of
the other.
Ecstasy reached in Biodanza is an inner experience of the soul
connection. When entering this experience, the state of happiness is
immense. Some authors call it supreme experience, because beauty,
love, happiness, and perception of wonder ... all together, have some
connection with ecstasy. This is a new meaning of life and reality.
Biodanza proposes access to ecstasy by stimulating the body's
chemistry, the connection with the inner strength and the joy of being
alive. Access to ecstasy can occur in different ways: If we recover the
words to tell ourselves how much we love, extraordinary things could
happen. We would be able to change the course of history of an adrift
civilization, with hundreds and thousands of lovers who caress
themselves with their words and dancing bodies.
It is as if each person would exhibit a mask to hide their inner
beauty. The splendor of life should not dazzle to the point of hiding our
human origin.

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Anthropological aesthetics

The anthropological aesthetic is a dynamic that uses Biodanza as a

stimulation of the affection and empathy128 that the other person also
awakens in us, as well as the articulation of words and the exaltation of
others, rescuing deep sincerity and simple aesthetic that humans have,
mostly beauty. This creation, which I love so much, is really the
realization of the poetry of human encounter and aims to discover the
human aspects of inner wealth, the original beauty of life, and the
aspects of the heart. It activates the resonance system with the
illuminated part of ourselves and others; a sort of master key of the
heart, able to discover that seed of indescribable beauty, which shows in
all humans being.
With its poetic art, Rolando Toro outlines that for those who
apparently have not been touched by grace, there is likewise that
backlit, the divine light that makes every person sacred.
Exercising deepens our sensitivity with our illuminated part, creating
some kind of loving phototropism that transforms our entire existence
with reflections on the depth of the creative acts, in education, in
psychotherapy, in the daily life, and in the beam of our eye.129 “Any act
of kindness is a demonstration of power.”130
This ability to see the anthropological aesthetics in others is very
important, and gives hope to the biocentric education of humanity, since
by learning to see and expressing the beauty that the other has, we learn
to perceive the world without much fear. It is presented as an exercise-
dance, where people are invited to express in words how beautiful they
see their peers. The words that rise, in an unimaginable way, are an
extraordinary finding for all participants.
The phenomenon that is achieved is magical when the eye on the
other is not traversed by consciousness.
Anthropologically speaking, the theory proposed by Toro states that,
when looking into the eyes of a human being, we will see in that
individual all the course of human history, which is full of beauty,
transcending fictitious canons of fashion and models.
Remember that the meaning of beauty, according to philosophy131, is
consistency in all aspects.
Throughout history, literature has described many times the great
infinite human difficulty to support such beauty. It was needed to
suppress the look, thus not to delve to see the hidden beauty, the infinite
beauty of our naked soul.
This extraordinary exercise is shocking because, when proposed to
the students, the first reaction is of difficulty, of modesty, of “what can I

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tell this person about the beauty I see in her?” and magically, the gates
of the symbolic and significant treasure open; that is, our unconscious
begins to sprout an unpredictable poetic or beauty-verse¹³² spring.
Therefore, from the Lacanian theory, which I admire, you can
understand how that torrent of words to another person occurs, thinking
the following idea: “Whenever we talk, we are talking of ourselves,”
thus reaffirming the esteem of the speaker that, by giving a series of
qualifiers adjectives to a colleague, he is qualifying himself.
I narrated the novel by Oscar Wilde, Narcissus and the Lake, to
explain anthropological aesthetics to my students:
A beautiful young man went to see his own beauty in a lake every
day. He was so fascinated with himself that one day he fell into the
water and drowned. There, was born a flower to which they called
“Narcissus.”
When Narcissus died, the Oreades, goddesses of the forest, came
and saw the lake had been transformed from a freshwater lake to a jug
of salty tears.
“Why are you crying?” the Oreades asked.
“I weep for Narcissus,” answered the lake.
“Oh, it does not surprise us that you cry for Narcissus!” they
continued. “At the end of the day, even though we always run after him
through the woods, you were the only one who had the opportunity to
look closely at his beauty.”
“But was Narcissus beautiful?” asked the lake.
“Who better than you could tell?” answered the Oreades in shock.
“It was in your borders where he bent to see himself every day.”
The lake was silent for a moment. Finally, it replied:
“I weep for Narcissus, but I never realized that Narcissus was
beautiful. I weep for Narcissus because each time he bent on my
borders, I could see my own beauty reflected in his eyes.”

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 21. Conference with Rolando Toro.

Circle of Fine Arts / Madrid (4/3/2008)

The Escuela Hipanica invited Rolando Toro on March 4th, 2008, to

share an experience at the Circle of Fine Arts. The Biodanza School of
Madrid requested an interview with Rolando Toro before the event. Our
goal was that during his visit he could share with the school a session of
deepening of our awareness about anthropological aesthetics.
After we met, deeply moved, we embraced and found our way to a
warm corner at Cafeteria del Circulo de Bellas Artes. I was so anxious,
like a teenager bumping into an old boyfriend.
We stood by a white marble sculpture of a beautiful naked woman,
embraced by amazing long hair. I was convinced he would be
fascinated by it.
As we found a table I offered him one of the best traditional almond
milk drinks from Madrid, horchata de chufa. He loved it. He used to
tell me, “My dear, this is the most delicious drink, after breast milk.”
I recited a poem for him, slowly and gently...

Rolando Mario Toro Araneda:

“You are the only note

in the eternity of silence
your dance is creating
a new song
who are you?, walking towards the lake...”

He laughed, looked at me with an air of complicity and asked me,

“Margarita, where did you find that poem?”
I replied, “It is a Zen poem that I found among La Musica en
Biodanza y la Semantica Musical.”
“Dear, you know what? I wrote that poem during my practice of Zen
poetry. Would you give it back to me, as I misplaced it?”
I replied to him, “Rolando, why did you mention that is was written
by an anonymous Chinese writer from XIV A.D?”
He answered, “I wanted to test my talent as a poet, with my friends,
so I used that pseudonym.”

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Students wrote their impressions of the meeting

“Tuesday’s afternoon was truly special. I introduced myself to

Rolando, I told him I was a student of Margarita, and, smiling, he
gave me a warm hug.
“The nest in the cafeteria, I loved the situation, Rolando’s
closeness, surrounded by all of us, thanks to the ease with which
Margarita makes a nest in the most unexpected places. Rolando
Toro gave me a positive impression. I found him an intelligent
gentleman, lucid, cheerful, with sense of humor, with a great
vitality, sweet, and energetic. With love,”
Alegría Sánchez

“When Roland showed the dances, I felt the significance of

the moment, I saw his dance, his movement, his lightness, and I
deeply admired his gift of kindness and gentleness, before a
woman, his humble gratitude to the person who helped him, but
also his ‘conquering’ sweetness when he came to seduce
someone, and the joy he conveyed, full of mischief!”
Jose Armando Tetamazzi

“I liked seeing the triumphal entry of Rolando with his white

suit with transparent top, an authentic genius. And his
movements, his way of welcoming people; tender and eternal
hugs.”
Ramon Aymerich

“The magic of life involves us in a pineapple. Welcome

ceremony crowning Rolando and the goddess Karger cheering
with beautiful glasses containing what looks like breast milk
(horchata).
“I perceive in his face a childlike sweetness, her eyes shining
and responding, endearing, about anthropological aesthetics.
“I think he is divine, his words, and the recent privilege
experience that our little family had in the hands of Margarita and
my teammates.
“Knowing looks, laughs, smiles, tender gestures, provocative
caresses, skin to skin, eyes that say it all caressing the soul.

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 “I am proud of my teacher, my professor and every one of the
beautiful people that take part of Biodanza School of Madrid. I
feel proud to belong, to identify, to feel myself with everyone.
With all my love,”
Beatriz Jimenez

“Having met the creator of what I consider a way of living

and to what I want to dedicate my life was and always will be a
great moment ... that has given me a boost and a connection of
vitality and enormous significance.”
Sandra Dotor

“... I saw Rolando, his presence transmitted me tranquility,

and the instant his voice was heard, I remember him specially.
Suddenly, that sweet way of talking, every word sounded in the
same musical tone and in the same color scale; it was beautiful...”
Ana Sanchez

“I am grateful to life for having put Biodanza in my way, as I

sense that it will become something truly valuable to me.”
Andrea Angel Jauregui

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 22. Conference on desire and its
existential projection.

Casa de América. Madrid, 2002

I'm excited about your presence, this elite of the heart, many of which
face the greatest transgression of this time, that is to feel the desires, not
to have guilt, and try to achieve them, because basically, every desire is
the germ of your accomplishments.
Someone told me: But there are impossible desires! Actually,
desires create a time/space in the environment that will facilitate their
implementation; and you realize suddenly that the impossible may
happen, which is the title of a book I've written. Because many times, in
my case, the impossible happened, so the desire seems to be designing
our existence.
Desires can be conscious or unconscious, but our behavior leads us
through the maze and will guide us towards the realization of our
desires, sometimes it is utopian. It doesn’t matter that some desires are
not met, but there is a large percentage of desires that must be met for
life to be nourishing and be full, and this requires freedom from
repression.
The process of freedom is the first thing that happens when you start
Biodanza, freedom in the Pavlovian sense. And I am thrilled to hear my
teammates, first to Dr. Eduardo Chamorro, who has linked painting and
dancing with poetry, and has mentioned all those who were the
forerunners of the theory of complexity. Currently, it has been found,
between different disciplines, that those hold backs are artificial and
harmful. In fact, the complexity theory133, extended to the human
sciences and to the arts, is the great revolution of contemporary thought,
with Ilya Prigogine134, Murrey, etc.; that is, to connect music with the
body, with psychology, with emotions, with poetry, with plastic, with
sociology, with ethology, etc. The boundaries of different disciplines
start to fade and we enter into an integral vision of man, and not into a
shattered vision.
Talking with one of the most brilliant men I have known, Albert
Hofmann135, the discoverer of LSD and psilocybin’s chemistry and
great theorist of the expansion of consciousness, he told me that this
separation of our thinking is projected in all dimensions. We are

76
dissociated from nature, we are dissociated from our fellow men, of our
species, we are dissociated from life; and if this dissociation persists,
the human species will be endangered. So our primary task is to
exercise the integration, and the main integration resource that the
human beings have is affection. Dance raises a sense of connection that
goes beyond the contact. The interesting thing is the connection to the
others; that is, to reach for their souls, identifying ourselves with them
and to establish an affective feedback circuit. There is excessive
violence in our time. The last century was the century of technological
wonders and infamy of human relationships; in the history of mankind
there were never such demonstrations about what Euripides said,
“Every angel is terrifying.” There is violence at home, there is violence
at school, there is urban violence, political violence, violence between
countries, between religious and political ideologies.
The sign of our time is violence. The solution is to integrate the
emotions again and enter the path of transcendence, ecstasy, in the path
of grace; learn to discover in the other person the beauty, the paradise.
“Bond” means the space where affection occurs. That's why Biodanza
can be defined as the poetry of human encounter; and human encounter
is not only gentle greeting, is not only non-violence, but also the
connection through the eyes, though the undifferentiated awakening
love, the love for children, for young adolescents, for adults, and the
elderly, by nature, and the love for every wonderful thing in the world.
We should give thanks for everything that exists, thanks for being
alive, thanks for fruit, for apples, thanks for the water, thanks for your
eyes, thank you for your kisses, thanks for the air ... We should hold
celebration events and, in fact, we often do at Biodanza. Our business is
to celebrate the other, not to slander or to attack him; celebrate the
possibility of a human being in your arms, invited by the artist to visit
ecstasy. Biodanza could also be a way to ecstasy, a path to awareness, a
path of expansion of our consciousness.
Actually, the program I brought here was, “Desire and its existential
projection “... but I can't help myself!
(Laughter and applause from the audience and teammates).
I wanted to say that the meaning of desire comes from desider,
desiderio in Italian, from the stellar, from the stars. Desires are like the
stars that guided sailors. Our life is guided by our desires and these
conscious or unconscious desires are also instinctive and cultural,
aesthetic and ethical, biological desires. Desire is a very complex
phenomenon. When I read the treatises of psychology about desire, it
makes me want to mourn loudly, because they have not entered the
complexity. For example, when you look at another person, your whole

77
body transforms, your arteries, your heart beating, the
neurotransmitters, the line of your life ... When you are in communion,
together with others, your whole body is transforming and also the
society.
Biodanza seeking to transform the world seems to be a utopia, but I
think you have to understand utopias; and in that sense, it is not enough
to love your neighbor, you have to dance with him, you have to go hand
in hand with people.
Talking once with Yehudi Menuhin,136 a wonderful musician, a
genius, he told me that music could raise and sweeten human beings,
and make an expansion of consciousness. He proposed the most varied
music auditions in elementary schools, and when he saw that I was
doing the dance, the human encounter, and the contact, we felt so
happy, like twin brothers or perhaps like the Marx Brothers, those crazy
comedians who wanted to transform the world and were complete
loons.
Now, down to earth a bit, your desires are designing your existence.
Tell me your wishes and I will tell who you are, and I will tell what will
be the outcome of your existential labyrinth.
We have developed a classification of desires using semantics set
into four main branches: the desires of identity, that is, the desire to be
significant, to be valued; the desire to have an established identity,
which is expressed in the world; the desire for power (which is not the
desire for political power, but the desire to own the world).
Truman Capote137 -- American writer, a genius, gay -- used to tell
the following story: One day, a black angel dropped into his bed, and it
was for him such a wonderful experience that he loved black people;
suddenly, an ideological transformation occurred. So he said, When you
love a leaf of a tree, you love the tree, and if you love the tree you love
the forest, and if you love the forest you love nature ... And that feeling
is something we can live with, that means to own the world.
Many people want to own something and to be rich, but they do not
know they are rich. I am rich, I am richer than the biggest millionaires
because I have a bathtub that is the sea, I don’t have Persian rugs, I have
green grass; I don’t have chandeliers, but I have the sun, and also have
my fellow human beings. So, how much richer can I get? I already won.
Don’t you know that you are gods? Because you have the sacred! You
have life! They must know it, to value it!
The other branch is love, the desire to love and to be loved; the
desire to be deeply understood; and having, in this short destination
path, traveling companions, friends. The desire for love, the desire for
empathy, the desire for motherhood, the desire for parenthood. And

78
warn the men, because the desire of parenthood is very significant. It
has always been said that the desire of maternity is still very important,
but paternity has not been given the importance it should. Even I have
hypothesized that men who do not develop paternity get prostate sick.
So beware, men have to devote time to their children!
Consequently, the desire for love is the desire for splendor of our
identity.
The desire of expression is the third branch; to be able to express
your potential, to say what you think, to declare your love. People feel
deeply in love but they do not declare it. They remain coy, so the other
person does not know. They should express it -- I like you, I want to be
with you, at night I have insomnia for you -- because if the other does
not know, he does not set his machinery of fantasies. We have to fulfill
our wishes of potential expression and artistic expression. For example,
some people would love to sing, they always wanted to sing, but they
never took a singing class. They do not even sing when they are taking
a shower. Others want to play guitar, others want to paint, others want
to write poems. DO IT, DO IT! That is, you must fulfill your desire of
expression.
The last branch is the desire of ecstasy, a kind of nostalgia for the
lost paradise. But there is no lost paradise. Paradise is here! Paradise is
your friend! Paradise is the forest! Paradise is not lost, it's there!
The desire for peace, the desire to heal others is part of the “tree of
wishes.” There is no greater healing power than love. But true love is
not a lunatic feeling, it is the desire to feel the meaning of life, being
part of the whole, to be part of an inconceivable and wonderful process.
Each of these four branches is subdivided into smaller ones, like a
tree, that we've called “the tree of wishes,” because life is not a circle, it
has successive bifurcations, branching, and anastomosis; do not try to
close circles, try to put together the ramifications, as in the ancient
wisdom of shamanism, as in the union of the arts, as in deep and
genuine connection with human desires, of which we are sometimes
shameful and scandalous; but it doesn’t matter. THE MORE
SCANDALOUS, THE BETTER!
(Audience applauds.)

Questions from the audience

First question from the audience

How do you regulate the instinctive desire to hug and the fear of
contact that some people have in a class of Biodanza?

79
 Rolando Toro (RT) answers: The process must be progressive. You
should not throw yourself over a person because you have so much
affection, because you could frighten her to death. To the extent that
you receive the love of the other, you value yourself, her hug gives you
assertiveness.
Sick people, when the therapist hugs them, when their friends hug
them, they are being valued, they gain confidence in themselves, many
things are happening to them. It is healing. The contact you make has
complex consequences. Now we know things that we did not know
before. For example, eroticism burns138 sex hormones, and these
hormones help fix calcium deficiency in the bones. So people who are
very childish and erotic at the same time, might fall from a second floor
without suffering very serious bone injuries. However, people who are
very correct and inconspicuous, may have more chances to break their
femoral neck if they misstep from a foot-high step; that is, there is a
relationship between desiring and calcium fixation, and there is also a
relationship between desires and feel the blast of dopamine, as well as a
relationship between desires and being more agreeable to your partner.
The consequences are very complex.

Second question from the audience

What purpose will we satisfy our desires with, if we are just passing
through? Does Biodanza have any position concerning God,
spirituality, life, and other lives?
Answer by RT: In Biodanza, based on the biocentric principle, we
accept that life has the dimension of transcendence by itself; that is, that
every moment is eternal and brief at the same time, and if we had the
opportunity of eternity after death, perhaps, every moment we live
would not have value. We are not willing to disqualify life that we have
here and now hoping for a world after death. If there is a world after
death, if there is an afterlife, I do not deny nor affirm because I do not
know and what I do not know, I cannot talk about.
In my youth, I tried to communicate with the dead by all means,
even by participating in black masses in cemeteries, but I have never
been able to bond with the world of the afterlife. This world is so
obviously divine that if you don’t see the sacred part of life here, you
must be completely blind. As Antonin Artaud said, Why do we have
eyes if we cannot see? Miracles are occurring at all times. You are the
miracle, the sacred is people. Human relationships are playing with the
sacred, or they are violating the sacred. Paradise is here; but to see it
and feel it, you need to increase your perception, an act of

80
consciousness expansion that requires some methodology; all this, and
despite the fact that civilization is removing and restricting
consciousness. Ethical awareness of humanity is in serious crisis!
We have to expand our consciousness and increase our perception to
be able to see the sacred part and how wonderful life is.
Biodanza is based on the biocentric principle: life as the center of
everything, and I bless those who believe in life after death, I hope there
is; I've never had that revelation, though I cannot deny it.
The intuition of every moment here and now, that is our eternity.

Third question from the audience

Willpower is for me a superior tone of desire. Can the desire become

the reason of suffering and disorientation of a human being? Are there
desires that take out our energy?
Answer by RT: Willpower is now called into question, especially
from ethology studies by Professor Eibl-Eibesfeldt and others. Human
beings are highly programmed, though we believe that we are free. We
cannot keep an eye on the neck and two noses, and much of our
behavior comes from invisible parts that we do not know and that have
that holistic feature. But you start from an idea that you can master
desire with willpower, and that is a totally masochistic conception,
since there is no need to master desires, since desire is the manifestation
of identity, from the deepest.
I do not totally agree with certain Eastern ideologies about
deadening the senses to not feel the pain. When the pain comes, you
have to feel it; but until it comes, give thanks to God, the divinity, the
eternity, that there is much possibility of happiness. But humanity is so
encased in standards, traditions, religious ideologies ... For example,
fundamentalists’ ideology had a woman stoned because she took
photographs of herself naked. You see to what extent the barbarity of a
theocracy reduces the human being to the last condition?
Be careful, be very careful, of ideologies! Stalin killed millions of
people to save the people. Desire is the purest thing that emerges from
the human being. You must be careful with the vow of chastity, poverty
and humility! Be careful with manliness! We must beware of
ideologies! There is a magnificent background in the dissertation of
your speech, which is the bond of love in the consciousness; but I do
not agree that it has to be under willpower. Willpower arises crystal
clear when there is a breadth of ethic consciousness.

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 Fourth question from the audience

Can frustration of a desire cause psychosomatic illnesses? Can our

own desires move to others?
José María Poveda answers: When a frustration occurs, a type of
aggressive phenomena can quickly appear in the individual. In this
regard, desire, to me, is energy and movement that seeks somehow to be
completed. Desire is not absolutely inexhaustible nor linear, but cyclical.
Therefore, any alteration that produces frustration may lead to other
consequences, such as having swings in your physical biorhythms,
producing psychosomatic illnesses.
Answer by RT: Rosenseight studied the problem of frustration. There
are people who are frustrated by anything that have not been fulfilled in
their lives, and there are others that go through all sorts of things and die
of laughter. Rosenseight measures frustration with a test that evaluates
the difficulty of certain people living in frustration. Carl Jaspers spoke of
frustrated existence and real existence. As to the former, it is the result of
fear and disconnection of yourself: fear of what people may say,
ideology; religious fear ... Those fears remove the atom of freedom that
human beings have and they accumulate in their life, frustration after
frustration, so it fails to have real existence because it is false, because it
is hetero-referential, a living based on the opinions of others.
You say very well that systematic frustration of any desire produces
psychosomatic illnesses. It’s true what you say, and this produces, as my
friend Poveda says, violence. That is why desires have to be
discriminated. There are self-destructive desires, there are desires that are
not met, there are temporary desires without meaning. For example, I go
down the street and I see a young woman who quickly walks in front of
me and then my desire to love her arises, but after I walk a street I do not
remember anything. Nothing happened!
Many frustrations do not matter; you have to see the essence of your
desires. These fundamental desires are what we study, not the fleeting
ones (I walk in front of a bakery and there is a cake and I really want to
eat it, but I do not have money, and nothing happens. That does not alter
the course of my life). The frustration comes, for example, when your
partner cheats on you or when your children, even though you love them
so much, they do not answer you back; these are the most essential
frustrations.

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 Fifth question from the audience

It's a treat for me to be here and see you so alive, and to be honest it
fills me with life, too. I am not initiated in Biodanza. They have brought
me here, it has not been a result of my desire. I am person that loves life
and human beings. When I see people hugging, I see in their faces a great
satisfaction, and still I am not able to hug someone for five minutes
because physical contact frightens me so much. Then I feel like I'm
missing something. I wonder what to do. Should I try Biodanza or should
I stay the way I am?”
Answer by RT: You do not have to strive. You are not forced to hug
anyone. Freedom is essential in this technique. If you do not want to hug,
then do not hug; if you do not want to exercise, then you don’t. But if the
music gets you excited, you can express it with joy. Of course, over time,
you begin to realize you're missing the big party ... (Laughter from the
audience.) Finally, you try in a progressive manner. We respect your
desire of not hugging completely.
Rodolfo Ladaga (RL) (intervenes): As you wished not to be here ...
(More laughter from the audience.)

Sixth question from the audience

I want to revisit the topic of willpower. When I speak of willpower, I

define the desire plus the action. Then I find interesting the statement of
Rolando Toro on the essential desire. I wonder, is it important to
recognize that essential desire as a primordial instinct?
Answer by RL: First, from his understanding, Rolando Toro bet on
diversity of desires rather than monotony, which is the usual. Second, the
limitation is a border that chooses the subject itself, as well as
distinguishing between desire and need. Freud framed it this way: Instinct
is the biological need, that which serves the survival; if I treat the object
of desire as a necessity, so if you or the object moves, I move, too.

Public participation

After the experience of Biodanza held yesterday at the Mandala Hall

of Madrid, where we completed the course of the School of Biodanza in
Madrid and the certification of teachers, as well as the opening of the
“tree of desires,” I remembered how wonderful it was to play, feel, look
into the eyes of another, touch the soul, connect together. I said to myself,
“If this was the last weekend of my life, what would I do or not do?” I

83
chose to perform, “The Tree of Desires,” with Rolando Toro ... (applause
from the audience)
This shows me what the longing of the soul is. I am very excited to
meet again with Master Rolando Toro, whom I met 30 years ago in
Argentina, and who opened the possibility of giving a hug to someone
that I had never met before ...
(Applause)

Closing ceremony by Margarita Karger

Let's close this thinkers’ table by bringing here the desire of the great
poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, who gave us this wonderful phrase
regarding desire:

“Draw a plan of your desire, and live always in it

within a standard of beauty.”

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 23. Biodanza for a better world.

Design and layout of Paradise

Do not let
Do not let the day end without having grown a bit,
without being happy, without having risen your dreams.
Do not let overcome by disappointment.
Do not let anyone you remove the right to express yourself,
which is almost a duty

Do not forsake the yearning to make your life something special. Be

sure to believe that words and poetry can change the world.
Whatever happens, our essence is intact.
We are beings full of passion.

Life is desert and oasis. We breakdowns, hurts us,

teaches us, makes us protagonists of our own history.
Although the wind blow against the powerful work continues: you can
make a stanza. Never stop dreaming, because in a dream, man is free ...
Walt Whitman

“I did not seek a heaven of utopia, a wonderful Shangri-La, a social

paradise, those Alicia’s trips, or the glorious events of the brain
chemistry. I did not seek the religious paradise you might expect after
death; I wanted the Paradise here and I found it.
“Despite the difficulties, despite of the signs of horror of our times,
Paradise is here, so close that we have difficulty perceiving it. “As
Professor Moses Plasencia says, ‘Humanity, despite remaining
imperfect, tends to improve.’”
Paradise is an essential form of reality. We just need a new way of
perception. Entering Paradise and starting a lifestyle in which
referential sources are loving, kinesthetic, aesthetic and transcendent.140
Biodanza gives access to a perception of the “other” in the aesthetic-
affective dimension. Entering within “ourselves” is paradise. Rising
every day is to get closer to paradise, as Borges said, “During the same
day, people spent several times through paradise and hell.”
How can we change the world without changing ourselves?

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 “The greater a poet is, Whitman, Rimbaud, Lorca, the more violent
and effective the opposition or conflict he arises will be, even in his
words. For the final harmony to be also greater and, above all, alive.”141
What would have happened if instead of developing the line of
Parmenides, the Western Hemisphere had followed the line of
Heraclitus?
What would be the fate of the current psychology if thinkers, instead
of developing Wundt’s behavioral line and Freud's psychoanalytic
thinking, had followed Dilthey’s development, putting their focus on
the experience, or if they had guided their evolution from Von
Bergman’s integration thinking?142
We dream of a better world, we love this utopia and we work from
within ourselves and from our own evolution, playing our part, as in the
story of the hummingbird: A little bird carried a water droplet in its
beak again and again to try to put out a big fire in the forest. To the
surprise and derision from other animals, the hummingbird answered,
“Why are you surprised, friends? I am just doing my part!”
Our key is in the exaltation of life, celebration, joy, lightness,
freshness, sensuality ... to build our reality and our own paradise. Each
teacher who obtained her degree in my school represents a hope of
reaching our dream. One day I heard a phrase, as if by magic, and I
decided that those would be the words I would use to deliver the
graduation diplomas for teachers of Biodanza.
A thinking that is full of hope:

“Start the task you chose, contribute with your love and
science in building a better world.”

Rolando Toro used to write a story or a poem after some events of

his life. During one of his visits to Madrid, in July 2002, we held a
luncheon in his honor along with other Biodanza facilitators. A few
months later he sent me the following poem:

Four goddesses and Paradise

It is enough for four goddesses to create Paradise
Delivered to the purest sense of the flower
Sweet and innocent
As streams of clear water wild
They bring the message of the wild origin
They play to be themselves
And from their souls laughter is born
Childhood of the Universe! Origin

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of approximation to the intimate mystery
where the beauty of the bodies
becomes tenderness,
and yet they are as
infinite and deep as the sea.
Celebration of timeless friendship!
Rolando Toro Araneda
Madrid, July 2002

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 24. Biodanza, a peace strategy in
today's society

“The world is a beautiful temple where all people

of the Earth can fit peacefully.”
José Martí

Biodanza is able to tame the beast inside us with the power of music, to
retrieve the slowness of the harmonizing movements and the perception
of peace in yourself.
That peace returns to us from the person who watches us and
caresses our soul, enabling confidence.
The exercise of “Dance of harmonic opposition” is a human
movement that generates peace, in which two people facing each other
oppose their hands, give each other their strength and metaphorically
show each other their opposition. They do not kill each other; they learn
to tolerate themselves, to live with differences, to like what is different,
to live with diversity.
To the rhythm of the music of Distance or The Last of the Mohicans,
they go changing what is opposite, feeling the different forces or
weaknesses that may have other colleagues or oneself.
It is imperative to understand what Kabbalah says regarding
violence: “When you kill one person, you kill a whole universe,” and
what Mahatma Gandhi143 taught us: “There is no way to peace, peace is
the way.”
As Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Loving another human being is
perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate
task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other works are but
a mere preparation.”

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 25. The need and creation of Schools
of Biodanza

“The transmission of knowledge is one of the essential

foundations for the constitution of human societies,
since each acquisition or invention –both technical or
spiritual nature – is integrated into the established
and propitious skills system, in turn,
generating new elements.”144

In 1991, I moved with my family to Madrid, like many other Latin-

American teachers of Biodanza, driven by Rolando Toro's dream, his
dream, which is now ours; being a germination seed expanding the
Biodanza’s nectar across the world.
In 1985, I was a student at the School of Biodanza in Buenos Aires,
the first school in the specialty. Rolando talked to us a lot about the
migratory instinct, that natural urge to fly into our dreams, to other
places, other worlds. We heard and watched him, spellbound. A
dreamer who gave us wings to fly ... Obviously he did very well,
because many of us, biodanzologists, over twenty years ago, we
embarked on a crazy adventure to come to Europe with our families or
alone, and now we are schools’ directors training future teachers.
The director of the school who gave me the title of Professor of
Biodanza was Mirta Schinini, and my beloved weekly-classes teacher,
Professor Maria Luisa Zubiarraín, whom I always remember with love
and infinite gratitude. At that time, Spain had not heard of the existence
of Biodanza.
In 1992, I was offered the opportunity to give my first speech of
Biodanza in the Humanities Research Association, and that same year, I
had the opportunity to present the Biodanza system at the School of
Sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). My first
weekly group had been born.
The following year, I was invited to give a series of lectures at the
Political Science and Sociology School at the UCM and in 1996,
encouraged by Rolando Toro, I managed to gather a group of people
who decided to trust me to start training Biodanza facilitators.

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 As a result, the Biodanza School of Madrid was born. Madrid
needed facilitators to teach each week the Biodanza system, and my
mission was to train them!
Eliane Matuk, director of the Model School of Biodanza “Rolando
Toro” in Milan, attended the inauguration of our new school.
During these years, many guest lecturers attended: Maite
Bemardelle, Suely Carvallo, Nadia Costa, Gilson Da Cruz, Rodolfo
Diaz, Marcelli Di Mateo, Silvia Eick, Nicolla Franchesquielo, Carlos
Garcia, Patricia Guissio, Helene Levi, Miriam Sofia Lopez, Patricia
Martello, Juan Manuel Martorell, Roberto Mirelman, Guiomar Morales,
Adriana Pinto, Antonio Sarpe, Giuseppe Schibetta, Terren Jorge
Rolando Toro Acuña, Rolando Toro Araneda, Marianella van Grieken
and César Wagner de Lima Gois.
Nowadays, with so many teachers offering lectures in Madrid,
Biodanza occupies a prominent and respected place as a complementary
therapy. I'm glad I helped forty-two teachers graduate, more than half of
the graduates in Spain, at that time.145
In 2004, I was invited by my friend and disciple, Mary Jesús Armas,
to make a presentation in the Canary Islands on the Biodanza system.
During that year, I taught several seminars and, after this good start, the
Biodanza School in the Canary Islands, which opened in February
2005, quickly started to flourish. Twenty-five students from this school,
now graduated, started their training, giving life to a project that
continues to grow. And, simultaneously, we performed a task that was
not simple, but relevant to the Canary Islands: to cooperate so that a
very important group of people that had trained in a previous promotion
could finish their management training cycle to receive their degree,
and assume their task of teaching Biodanza in different islands of the
archipelago.

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26. Activities held in Madrid in universities
and other public institutions

School of Psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid for

Psychology’s Sophomores, by Professor Eduardo Chamorro. during
2003-2006.

School of Medicine, Department of Psychology, Autonomous

University of Madrid, by doctors Jesus and Jose Maria Poveda, during
2005 and 2006.

2005 Teaching’s Training Plan at the Psychiatric Hospital “Doctor R.

La Fora” in the Community of Madrid.

Master of Music Therapy at the Villanueva University attached to the

Autonomous University of Madrid, during the courses 2004, 2005,
2006, and 2007.

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 27. Social service activities carried out in
the Canary Islands

Expobienestar, October 2004

Volunteers at Teléfono de la Esperanza, December 2004
Mujer de Cáritas’s Projects, March 2005
Women's Day, City of Ingenio, March 2005
Women Coexistenc, City of Agüimes, November 2005
II Conference on Disability of the Council of Gran Canaria,
November 2005

In the Canary Islands’ universities, and other public institutions:

Class for Collegiate of Social Work, Physiotherapy, and Nursing,

December 2004
Class at the University of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria (ULPGC)
vice-rectorship for Culture, November 2004
Class in the Faculty of Education at the ULPGC, November 2005
Student Vice-Rectorship of the ULPGC, November 2005
Class for Primary Care Management’s Nurses in Las Palmas in
Gran Canaria, February 2006
Initiation class for high school students of the IES, Lomo de la
Herradura, Gran Canaria, April 2008
Initiation class for high school students of the IES La Isleta, Las
Palmas in Gran Canaria, March 2008
Introduction Workshop to Biocentric Education for teachers of
the IES, Lomo de la Herradura, Las Palmas in Gran Canaria,
April and June 2008

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 28. First Biodanza Island Conferences

Literary Cabinet. September 2008.

Las Palmas in the Canary Islands

Introduction speech of the Conference by Prof. Moises Plasencia

Martin, CEO of Cooperation and Cultural Heritage of the Canary
Islands Government.
Biodanza –the dance of life- is a system of personal growth that aims
at the development of natural and positive aspects of human beings and
their integration with each other and with their environment. It is a
modern, innovative methodology, which not only raises dance as a
spectacle, but as a healer and creative inner experience.
The Canary Islands have always been open to artistic, scientific, and
globalizing vanguards. It is also a privileged, powerful physical space
where the generative forces of nature manifest themselves in a unique
and powerful way. Both characteristics have been recognized by the
international community in considering our historic center of San
Cristobal de La Laguna and our Garajona Park as a World Heritage. In
addition, the Historical Center Triana and Vegueta, the Teide National
Park, and the Silbo Gomero whistled language will be soon recognized
by UNESCO.
Therefore, I think that no place better than the Canary Islands, and
specifically the Literary Cabinet of Las Palmas – a meeting point for
intellectuals, artists; one of the pillars of modernity of our archipelago --
to welcome these First Biodanza Island Conferences.
These islands, treasure of the biological and botanical diversity of
the planet, are the ideal scenario for an activity that proposes the
expression of our genetic materials and the recovery of our biological
harmony. Today, on this spring afternoon, by hosting this event, the
Canary Islands return to participate in the second universal
globalization. The archipelago, which for centuries was an exit route,
now welcomes ideas and proposals returning from South America.
A hundred meters from the venue of these conferences, is the Casa
de Colón, a symbol of travel, discovery, encounter, and growth. I think
the world is a shell; there is no place for happiness, health and
prosperity of a few. In this sense, the Biodanza is a great universal
movement that allows to widespread access to welfare and happiness.

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 I want to express my congratulations to all who have made this
convention possible, especially Guiomar Morales, director of the
School of Biodanza in Berlin; Margarita Karger, director of the School
of Biodanza in the Canary Islands; and Madrid, and María Jesus Armas,
coordinator of the School of Biodanza in the Canary Islands.
I am sure that these conferences will be a success. It cannot get any
better when one of the scheduled activities has the title of “Practice on
the beauty of life.” I wish all participants enjoy these moments of
happiness that certainly, they will experience, and remember these First
Biodanza Island Conferences and the Canary Islands as two examples
of the rebirth of our world of pleasure and beauty.
Receive this hug from a friend.
Moises

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 29. Tribute to Dr. Jose Maria Poveda

“Walker, there is no path to follow,

you make the path by walking.”

Biodancing at the Autonomous University

My little tribute to the family of a great teacher, to their children, my

friends and colleagues, doctors José María146 and Jesus Poveda:
A few months after arriving in Madrid, when I had moved from
Buenos Aires with my three young children to a strange new world, I
had the chance to see a TV show, with thinkers who sat around a table,
that caught my attention.
Especially, the deep words of an elegant gentleman echoed in me,
whose reflections on life made me stop and write them down in a
notebook that, though yellowish, I still keep.
That man was presented to the public as a psychiatrist, professor at
the School of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Madrid
(UAM), Psychiatry Professor Dr. José María Poveda.

In my notes on his words, I wrote the following:

Neurotic World, rigid, conservative
Nothing creative
Light man
General melancholy
End of an Era
The soul of life are values
Collective depression
The world is sad
The great scandal of the century: the great technical
progress in parallel with the dehumanization
Happiness consists of illusions
The suicide of humanity is the lack of illusion
Soul pain

And finally he declared, “The twenty-first century will be ethical, or

not be ...”
And people asked what would he suggest to us, that he dreamed
about to help this world:

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 And he said, “The solution is to rebuild a new man ...”
It took many years and I kept this notebook as a jewel; and today,
fifteen years later, I found it to give it to his children and grandchildren.
But that was only the first chapter of this story ...
Many years later, I found that, in the School of Medicine, a doctor
named José María Poveda offered his students, future doctors, Biodanza
sessions. As director of the School of Biodanza in Madrid, I decided to
go visit the professor to congratulate him on such a wise decision.
After much research, I came to talk to UAM’s authorities and
reached Mr. José María Poveda for an interview.
I was very excited. I approached the facility and opened the door of
his office, I saw before me a young, sport-dressed man with a ponytail.
Faced with such astonishment, I hesitantly explained to him I
actually came to see a man, a professor, who was not him. José María’s
son, with the sympathy that characterizes him, and very excited, told me
that I was looking for his father, who had died a few years ago ...
I tell this story because it is part of my life and it's a little gift I want
to leave on paper. I know what it is to have a wonderful father, because
I know what the Hippocratic oath is, and because my friend, Jesus
Póveda, always asked me to tell my students of the School of Medicine
this charming story.

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 30. Scope of Biodanza

We believe that the two most important Biodanza areas of activity, at

this time, are – coinciding with the words of Rolando Toro --
universities, to give the academic prestige that Biodanza deserves and,
moreover, social action, bringing those with fewer resources to this
treasure.
“Biodanza is not an alternative, but a science of the human being
and it is a meditation on the joy of life and love.” “A continuation of the
human sciences, an emotional mission.'”147
In the words of Dr. Jesús Poveda, Biodanza is not an alternative
discipline, but a complementary discipline. “No magic, psychologically
moves from one state of consciousness to another; the backbone of
Biodanza are biological science and human sciences.”148
I'll never forget the first experience I had of Biodanza as a social
service. It was at the first International Congress of Biodanza in Praia
do Forte, Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, in 1989. Once there, I participated
in what for me was my first conspiracy of love. The experience
proposed by the conference program was called “Biodanza na rúa”
(Biodanza in the streets).
When we left the hotel where the event was held, all the participants
took to the streets and in three minutes, we put together a giant circle
with several hundreds of people. The big surprise was for the street
children playing on the Strada do Coco (Coconut Street), which divided
the luxury of a hotel with the beauty of the village of Praia do Forte, a
paradise of giant tortoises. The children who at that time were invited to
the big circle and inserted between the conference attendees,
immediately gave their hands to us. Miraculously, we were able to pass
on a little more joy and sweetness to them and their moms selling
certain foods and handicrafts to tourists.
During all these years, I have been fortunate to lead classes for
seniors. This work has been the most rewarding that I could have done.
The elderly are very affective and wise people. We have so much to
learn from them. They have another time dimension, living in a much
more real and authentic present. They are immensely transcendent, and
the least we can do is give them back their right to happiness.

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 For Biodanza, social service is based on the transformation of the
emotional attitudes of human beings. We are not satisfied with people
recovering their caress, smile, tenderness, and happiness. We are much
more ambitious: We aim to regain access to ecstasy. To achieve this, we
need to dissolve the taboos and sexual, religious repression, and any
kind of extremism that goes against life.

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 31. One of the amazing extensions of
Biodanza: Aquatic Biodanza

It is one of my favorite activities and the one that I explored most.

It takes place in a warm and adequate pool at body temperature. The
Aquatic Biodanza experience resembles what Jung called oceanic
experience and others called intrauterine memory.
Upon entering the water, participants regain the joy and playfulness,
their willingness to play. In the water, everything becomes lighter;
barriers and distances between people are diluted. Aquatic Biodanza
acts especially on cellular psyche and vital unconsciousness, a concept
that, Rolando Toro contributed as the “cellular solidarity.” If we keep
our cells dancing and in harmony, we are protecting our body by raising
our immune system.
This magnificent Biodanza extension has an amazing transforming
power. You have to experience what it feels like.
“Rocked by love, we remember sensations experienced where the
pleasure of living was present. It becomes a prenatal state; the
inhibitory mechanisms go down and our 'primitive brain' is released.
Water is the medium that binds us to instincts, with memories of
prenatal life and the aquatic phase of our existence.”149

“I like Aquatic Biodanza because I am a cuddly person and I

love to come back to a warm, paradisiacal place, surrounded
by a protective and extremely caring environment.”150

My son, Gabriel, like all the children of the pioneers of Biodanza,

participated since very young in events and conferences of Biodanza in
Brazil and Argentina. He was growing with my evolution in Biodanza
in Spain and Portugal. Once, after a reasonable time in which, during
his adolescence, he had distanced wisely, he shared an aquatic Biodanza
class in Madrid with a group of people who he did not know. With the
challenge of empathizing, trusting and having fun, his later comment
was surprising and revealing: “Mom, people who want to know
Biodanza for the first time have to do Aquatic Biodanza.” That fact was
very important to me. The water, with its qualities that dilute the
distances and barriers between people, had been a magical element for
him, facilitating the approach to new relationships.

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 32. Biodanza Jewelry

As I was saying goodbye to Buenos Aires -- Oh! Buenos Aires, my dear

-- I brought my Biodanza notes with me. They were so important to me;
they were my treasures. Now I see more clearly the scene of my
farewell at the airport of Ezeiza, where we would open our suitcases
and leave the excess toys that my children, my true treasures, wanted to
bring to their new and unimaginable life in Madrid. I held on to my
Biodanza papers in an act of lucidity, like they did to their toys; among
them I have the following that I still choke up when I read.
What will happen to you when you read it?

Message to the students of Biodanza

A new stage of human evolution is emerging.

A new type of unprecedented social action is emerging from the
illuminated heart.
We now know that is not possible any social transformation if you
don’t change your feelings profoundly; that is, the ways of relating to
people and the cosmic environment.
Biodanza has great “organizing power,” a synthesis of unifying
energy capable of renewing life. Our key is contact.
Our certainty is contact. But such an intimate, deep, and emotional
contact can only be done through progressive love relationships.
Today's education does not promote contact. Contact means
establishing essential links. The current educational systems create men
for failure of their full potential.
The work turned to be oppressive and alienating.
Today’s education does not unite men and women with their work,
but separates them from it. It does not cultivate affection, but
perpetuates mechanisms of exploitation and oppression.
Today’s education does not cultivate cosmic consciousness and the
ecological love. Its methodologies offer lower levels of consciousness.
However, through a single generation, we could change the course
of history, transforming the rituals of a civilization of death in a
permanent building of conscious and loving life.
The education of a single generation would change the quality of the
world’s evolutionary process. Men would be raised to the full, as
proposed by the biocentric culture.

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 Biodanza is delivering powerful guidelines for this revival.
The evolution of this should encompass people of the future.
Today’s man will know how to immerse himself in the taste of tears
and the taste of the body of his beloved ones.
He will also know how to open to ecstasy, to the essential, the
eternal.
Contact is a political action. Love and transcendence are the driving
forces of social justice.
“Biodanza is the conspiracy of love.”
It’s time to begin.
Our noble family of Biodanza is beginning a transformation of the
social astral.
The dawns of the coming years will be gracious, sweet, and caring
with the civilization, giving new life patterns.
I am sending this message to my Biodanza students and teachers,
beloved children that life gave me, and in whom the energy for the
advent of a world germinates, where life will be respected and
ennobled.

Rolando Toro Araneda, October 19th, 1982

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 NOTES

Prologue by Rolando Toro Araneda

1. Chilean educator, founder of the Biodanza system (1924-2010).
(N.de E.)

Chapter 1. My Passion for Biodanza

2. Piazzola-Ferrer; “Balada para un loco” (tango).

Chapter 2. The Thousand and one definitions of Biodanza

3. Rolando Toro, Escritos de Biodanza (writings on Biodanza)
4. Rolando Toro, Escritos de Biodanza
5. Arthur Rimbaud (Carleville, 1854-Masella, 1891), French poet,
appointed sometimes to the Symbolist movement and others to the
Decadent movement.
6. Rolando Toro, Escritos de Biodanza
7. Rolando Toro, Escritos de Biodanza, 1984
8. Rolando Tor, Escritos de Biodanza
9. Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pesoa (Lisboa, 1888id, 1935), one of
the greatest Portuguese and European literature poets. Other
heteronyms were adopted, such as Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de
Campos, Bernardo Soares, and Ricardo Reis.

Chapter 3. The Biodanza theoretical Model

10. Lersch, Philipp (1962) The personality structure, Barcelona,
Scientia.

Chapter 4. What is its methodology?

11. Rolando Toro. Biodanza Material (IBF).
12. Rolando Toro, (IBF).

102
13. Wilhelm Dilthey (Biebrich, Germany, 1833-Seis am Schlern,
Austria, 1911): Philsopher, Historian, Sociologist, Psychologist,
scholar of the Hermeneutics. (“Vivencia” materials, text by Rolando
Toro.)
14. Infographic by Alelí Mirelman.
15. Rolando Toro. Biodanza material.
16. Rolando Toro. Biodanza material
17. Pilar Díaz Delgado: student at the Biodanza School of Madrid.
18. Piluca Díaz conclusion.
19. Rolando Toro. Biodanza material.
20. Infographic (circular) by Alelí Mirelman.
21. Carl Gustav Jung (Kesswill, 1875-Küssnacht, 1961): Medical
Psychiatrist, psychologist, Swiss essayist, relevant character of
psychoanalysis beginnings. Founder of the Analytic School of
Psychology, also referred to as psychology of complexes or deep
psychology.
22. Jose Maria Poveda Agustin. Professor of the school of Medicine
of the Autonomous University of Madrid, Casa de America, Madrid.

Chapter 5. Who is Biodanza For?

23. Text from IBF.
24. Text from IBF.

Chapter 7. History of Biodanza' s birth

25. Rolando Toro, Mutantia, Buenos Aires,1982.

Chapter 8. Origin and system foundation

26. Rolando Toro writings. 1970

Chapter 9. Precedent, mythological and philosophical reference

27. Teachers’ training course, Material of Biodanza from (IBF)

103
28. Rolando Toro. Mythical and philosophical background of
Biodanza. Texts from the teachers training school.
29. Epicurean School of Philosophy focused on ethics. Conceives the
realization of a good and happy life through a wise administration
of pleasure and pain; ataraxia and its links to friendship among
colleages.

Chapter 10. Implemented regression

30. The concept of identity in Biodanza and its relationship with the
Lacanian thinking, a conference presented by the author;
International Congress of Biodanza, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August
2004
31. Jean William Fritz Piaget (Neuchátel, 1896 - Geneva, 1980):
Swiss psychologist, philosopher and biologist, founder of genetic
epistemology and famous for his contributions in the field of
evolutionary psychology, studies on children and his theory of
cognitive development.
32. Martin Bubber (Vienna, 1878 - Jerusalem, 1965): Israeli
Austrian Jewish philosopher, theologian and writer. He is known for
his idea of “philosophy of dialogue” and for his religious works.
Cultural Zionist, philosophical anarchist, existentialist religious and
partisan of the Israeli and Palestinian unity.
33. Martin Heidegger (Messkirch, 1889-Freiburg, 1976): German
philosopher. He studied Catholic theology and was a disciple of
Husserl, founder of phenomenology. He influenced the unique and
difficult style used by Jean-Paul Sartre in the Being and
Nothingness, and even Jacques Lacan when writing his Writings.
34. Rolando Toro Araneda, Biodanza School of Buenos Aires class,
December 1985
35. Rolando Toro Araneda, original texts: “Los siete poderes
transformadores de Biodanza.”
36. Master Toro's words at the conference: “The desire and
existential projection.” Madrid. Casa de América
37. Rolando Toro, “Biodanza,” writings of Biodanza Association in
Buenos Aires, 1964

104
38. When writing “Is” capitalized, we are referring to the “Being”
by Martin Heidegger (Being and Time)
39. According to Jacques-Marie Émile Lacan (Paris, 1901 – id.
1981), French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist; best known for his work
which overthrew the field of psychoanalysis.
40. Ludwig Biswanger (Kreuzlingen, 1881-id. 1966), Swiss
psychiatrist, disciple of K. Jung; he cultivated a special interest in
the works of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber,
gradually leaning toward a more existentialist than Freudian
perspective.

Chapter 12. Identity and integration

41. Vivir,Amar y Aprender, by Leo Buscaglia.

Chapter 13. Biological foundation and love biology

42. Rolando Toro, official material, biological aspects
43. Professor Rolando Toro, Biodanza study materials
44 Jakob Johann von Uexkull (Keblaste, 1864-Capri, 1944),
Estonian biologist and philosopher of German origin, produced great
achievements in the fields of muscle physiology and cybernetics of
life
45. Philippe Lersch (1962), The structure of personality, Barcelona,
Sienita
46. Juan Rof Carballo (Lugo, 1905-Madrid, 1994), Galician doctor
and essayist, father of psychosomatic medicine
47. Adriaan Kortland (Rotterdam, 1918-Amsterdam, 2009), Dutch
ethologist, famous for his work on instincts hierarchy
48 Jean Cocteau (Maisons-Laffitte, 1889 Milly-la-Foret, 1963), poet,
novelist, playwright, painter and director of French cinema
49. Tora Rolando, official study material, School of Biodanza,
“Biodanza Trance and Regression”
50. Reparenting adult situations, changes the original meaning of the
experience.
51. Rolando Toro, official book, “Trance and regression” (IBF)

105
Chapter 14. Physiology of emotions
52. Jaime Karger and others cite Einstein in the scientific paper
entitled, “Allergy, immunology and psychology,” Salta (Argentina),
1971.
53. Henri Wallon (Paris, 1879-Id., 1962), French physician and
psychologist, one of the founders of the generic psychology;
bibliography collections, lectures at the Sorbonne
54. Paul Donald MacLean (Phelps, 1913-Potomac, 2007), American
neuro-scientist who made significant contributions in the fields of
psychology and psychiatry
55. Joseph E. Bogen (Cincinnati, 1926-Pasadena, 2005), American
neurophysiologist, specialized in dual or split brain and theories of
consciousness
56. Victor W. Turner (Glasgow, 1920-Id., 1983), Scottish cultural
anthropologist with an important work on symbolic anthropology
57. Ergun (of Greek origin) means “work”
58. Trufé (of Greek origin) means “nutrition”

Chapter 16. Affection, contact and caress

59. Paul Valery, “The Pléiade,” Volume 2, pp. 215- 216
60. Rolando Toro, material of Affectivity School of Biodanza (IBF)
61. Psychoanalist, writer and poet. Member of the Lacanian School
of Psychoanalisis. Professor at the Center of Psychoanalisis studies
“Nucep”. Member of the Decartes Center of Buenos Aires; and the
Cruce Art & Thinking Foundation of Madrid.
62. “When you find yourself, plop, ask for a hug, you will feel much
better.” Eugenio Trías Sagnier (Barcelona, 1942-id. 2013), the great
Catalan thinker
63. Feedback

Chapter 17. Biodanza and psychoanalysis: an inevitable encounter

64. Alleged native of the island.

106
65. Rodolfo Ladaga Aramburu, excerpt from the conference on “The
desire and its existential projection,” Madrid, Casa de America,
July 2001
66. Translation that belongs to me, from the book “Sequential
Dances,” by Almira Rocha, director of the School of Biodanza of
Pernambuco, Brazil.
67. Rolando Toro, teacher training course, Material of Biodanza: Ars
Magna. Biodanza School (IBF)
68. Biodanzologist: neologism described by Prof. Dr. Rodolfo
Ladaga Aramburu
69. Gilles Deleuze (Paris, 1925-Id., 1995), important French
philosopher; co-produced works with French philosopher and
psychoanalyst, Felix Guattari (1930-1992)
70. Etymologically, ex, “outside” and sist, “system,” outside of the
system
71. Wilhelm Reich (Dobrzanica, 1897-Lewisburg, 1957), Austrian -
American scientist, inventor, doctor, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst
72. Rodolfo Ladaga Aramburu, Psychoanalysis Introduction
Thought Study Group (1998-2005)
73. Rolando Toro, original texts of Biodanza and poetry; poetic
language as therapy, collected materials by the author
74. The phrase is a kind of syntactic constituent.
75. An icon (from Greek eikon, “image”) is an image, picture or
representation; a sign that replaces the object.
76. Semiotics is defined as the study of signs, their structure and
how the signifier and the signified concept relationship occurs.
77. Capacity that allows any human being to transmit or receive
specific information needed for its existence.
78. Elegy is a subgenre of lyric poetry that means, usually, every
poem of lament or sadness.
79. Walt Whitman (West Hills, 1819-Camden, 1892) is considered
one of the greatest American poets. His lyrical work, concentrated in
successive editions of Leaves of Grass, exercises his teaching over
the majority of the modern poetry.

107
80. Saint-John Perse (Pointe-à-Pitre • 1887-Hyeres, 1975), French
poet and diplomat born in the Caribbean. Winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature, his speech at the awards dinner, on December 10,
1960, has been a model of eloquence.
81. Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), Spanish poet, playwrightand
prose writer, also known for his skill in many other arts. Attached to
the Generation of 27, he is the most influential andpopular poet of
the twentieth century Spanish literature.
82. William Seward Burroughs (St. Louis, 1914-Kansas, 1997),
novelist and essayist figure of the Beat Generation
83. David Herbert Lawrence (Eastwood, 1885-Vence, 1930), British
author of novels, short stories, poems…; representative of
modernism in English literature
84. Pierre Louys (Ghent,1870-Paris, 1925), poet and storyteller in
French, and a member of the Symbolist movement
85. Violette Leduc (Arras, 1907-Faucon, 1972), contemporary
French novelist, observer of the dramatic psychology of women
86. Stephane Mallarmé (Paris, 1898 –id. 1842), great French poet
and critic of the 19th century, representative of symbolism
87. Edith Sitwell (Yorkshire, 1887-London, 1964), English poet,
lecturer and writer, advocate of the innovation in British poetry
88. Ludwig Zeller (Rio Loa, Calama, 1927), Chilean surrealist. His
poetry shows a great influence of visuality, since he considers some
visual expressions as poetry -- for example, the collage -- the feature
of locating images on paper in the style of the verses in the poems.
89. André Breton (Tinchebray, 1896-Paris, 1966), French writer,
known as the main driver of the Surrealist movement
90. Gabriela Mistral (Vicuña, 1889-New York, 1957), Chilean poet,
educator, and diplomat, 1945 Nobel Prize for Literature
91. Pablo Neruda (Parral 1904-Santiago de Chile, 1973), Chilean
poet, senator, member of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of Chile and Chilean ambassador to France (1971-1973);
winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He is one of the
most published and influential poets of the twentieth century.
92. Nickname of Georg Friedrich Philipp Freiherr von Hardenberg
(1772-1801), German poet. He was part of the first romance.

108
93. Czeslau Milosz (Szetejnie, 1911-Krakow, 2004), Polish-born
poet, 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature
94. Rainer Maria Rilke (Prague, 1875-Val Mont, 1926), one of the
greatest poets in German language and in world literature; author of,
for example, “Dubio Elegies” and the “Sonnets to Orpheus”
95. San Juan de la Cruz (Avila, 1542-Úbeda, 1591), mystical and
religious Spanish Renaissance poet. Since 1952, he has been the
patron of poets in Spanish.
96. Amado Nervo (Nayarit, 1870 -Montevideo, 1919), pseudonym
of Mexican poet Juan Crisóstomo Ruiz de Nervo y Ordaz, belongs to
the Modernist movement
97. Ambroise-Paul- Toussaint-Jules Valéry (Sete, 1871-Paris, 1945),
French writer, mainly poet, but also an essayist
98. Vicente Garcia-Huidobro Fernandez (Santiago de Chile, 1893-
Cartagena {Chile} 1948), Chilean poet, initiator and member of the
aesthetic Creationism movement
99. Octavio Paz Lozano (Mexico DF, 1914-Id., 1998), Mexican
poet, essayist and diplomat; one of the most important poets of the
20th century; comparable, for his influence in Latin America, with
Juan Ramon Jimenez, Vicente Huidobro, Cesar Vallejo and Pablo
Neruda
100. Virginia Woolf (London, 1882-Lewes, 1941), British writer and
editor. Although she began her literary career writing essays and
literary criticism, she was noted mainly as a novelist. During the
interwar period, she became an important figure in London literary
society and she was part of the Bloomsbury Group. Her best-known
novels are “Mrs. Dalloway,” (1925) “To the Lighthouse,” (1927)
and “Orlando” (1928).
101. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (Dublin, 1882-Zurich, 1941),
Irish writer, recognized worldwide as one of the most important and
influential of the 20th century. Joyce is acclaimed for his
masterpiece, “Ulysses” (1922).
102. Ezra Weston Loornis Pound (Hailey, 1885-Venice, 1972), poet,
essayist, musician and critic belonging to the Lost Generation, who
ardently preached the rescue of ancient poetry to make it available to
a modern, conceptual and at the same time fragmented conception

109
103. Haroldo Eurico Browne de Campos (Sao Pablo, 1929-Id.,
2003), Brazilian poet, essayist and translator, one of the founders of
the “concrete poetry” movement
104. Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (Lauffen-am-Neckar,
1770-Tubingen, 1843), German lyric poet; his poetry welcomes the
classical tradition and he blends it with the new Romance
105. René Daumal (Boulzicourt, 1908-Paris, 1944), French writer,
essayist, poet and translator; author of, “The Big Binge”
106. Irwin Allen Ginsberg (Newark [New Jersey], 1926-New York,
1997), American Beat poet, link between the Beat movement in the
‘50s and hippies in the ‘60s
107. William Seward Burroughs (Missouri, 1914-Kansas, 1997),
American novelist, essayist and social critic, figure of the Beat
Generation.
108. Saint-John Perse (Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, 1887-Hyeres,
France, 1975), pseudonym of Marie-René-Auguste-Alexis Leger,
French poet, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960
109. Reference: Biodanza historical jewels, “Biodanza and poetry”

Chapter 18. Music, a magnificent road to our being

110. Rolando Toro, Biodanza’s definition, Bio-life, dance-
movement full of meaning
111. Rolando Toro, writings
112. Rolando Toro, writings
113. Rolando Toro, 1984
114. Kurt Lewin (Moglino, 1890-Newtonville, 1947), Polish-
American psychologist; he investigated group psychology
115. Infographic by Alelí Mirelman
116. The term “semantic” refers to the aspects of meaning – or the
interpretation of the meaning – of a particular symbol or word.
117. Infographic by Alelí Mirelman
118. Quote by Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Ladaga
119. Rolando Toro, master’s texts

110
120. Rolando Toro, writings

Chapter 19. Principles of corporal encounter

121. School of Biodanza’s Program, Prof. Rolando Araneda
122. According to Julian de Ajuriaguerra (Bilbao, 1911 -
Villefranque, 1493), Basque neuropsychiatrist, nationalized French,
scholar of the semiotics of muscle tone
123. Theodor Lipps (Wallhalben, 1851-Munich, 1914), German
philosopher and psychologist; the first to develop the concept of
empathy. Initially, he applied it in the aesthetic experience. (Source:
lnternational Biocentric Foundation)
124. Gerda Alexander (Wuppertal, 1908 - Copenhagen, 1994), “the
search of the spontaneous movement” to realize what was later
called “Eutony.” Eutonía, Un camino hacia la experiencia total del
cuerpo, Buenos Aires, Paidos

Chapter 20. The place of beauty

125. Karl Hermann Hesse (Calw, 1977-Morttagnola, 1962), German
(nationalized Swiss) writer, poet, novelist and painter; 1946 Nobel
Prize for Literature
126. Quote by Rolando Toro
127. See Exercise “Trance by rotation round”
128. Empathy: ability to understand the needs, feelings, and problem
of others, to put yourself in their shoes and respond correctly to their
emotional reactions
129. Rolando Toro, anthropological aesthetic works, Biodanza
School (JBF)
130. Anonymous quote
131. José Ferrater Mora, “Dictionary of Philosophy,” Buenos Aires,
Sudamericana, 1951
132. Very appropriate neologism.

111
Chapter 22. Conference about desire and its existential impact
133. The complexity theory is a mathematical theory applied to
nonlinear systems. Our world is not a linear system.
134. Ilya Prigogine (Moscow, 1917-Brussels, 2003), Belgian
physicist, chemist, and professor of Soviet origin, awarded with the
1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
135. Albert Hofmann (Baden, 1906-Basel, 2008), Swiss intellectual
and chemist; first to synthesize, ingest, and experience the effects of
LSD (lysergic acid)
136. Yehudi Menuhin (New York, 1916-Berlin, 1999), Russian
violinist and conductor, son of Jewish immigrants; obtained a British
citizenship in 1985 (and the title of Lord)
137. Truman Capote (New Orleans, 1924-Los Angeles, 1984):
Pseudonym for Truman Streckfus Persons, an American journalist
and writer known for his novel-document, “In Cold Blood” (1966)
and “Breakfast at Tiffany's” (1958).
138. Deflagrate (Latin: deflagrare), intr. burn a substance, suddenly,
without flame or explosion
139. “The tree of wishes,” a seminar given by Rolando Toro, took
place in Madrid for the first time

Chapter 23. Biodanza for a better world. Design and diagram of

Paradise
140. Rolando Toro, “Minotaur Project,” editorial Petropolis, RJ,
Voces Ltda., 1988 (translation is my own)
141. Leon Camino Galicia de la Rosa, known as Leon Felipe
(Tabara, 1884-Mexico City, 1968), Spanish poet, part of the
Generation of ‘27
142. As per Rolando Toro

Chapter 24. Biodanza, a peace strategy for our society

143. Mahatma Gandhi (Probandar, 1869 -New Delhi, 1948), Indian
lawyer, politician, and thinker (The word mahatma means “great
soul.” It comes from Sanskrit’s maha, which is “great” and otma,
meaning “soul.”)

112
144. Moses Plasencia, writings

Chapter 25. The need and creation of schools of Biodanza

145. Data from the Web site of the International Biocentric
Foundation (IBF)

Chapter 29. A tribute to Dr. Jose Maria Poveda

146. Professor of Psychiatry at the Autonomous University of
Madrid

Chapter 30. Biodanza's fields of action

147. Rolando Toro, writings
148. Notes collected by myself

Chapter 31. A wonderful extension of Biodanza: aquatic Biodanza

149. Professor Gilson da Cruz, magazine AEIB
150. Margarita Karger’s statement

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Testimony about the book of a student from
Luxembourg
 About the Author

Margarita Karger is a Biodanza educator and facilitator, neuro-educator,

licensed speech therapist with specialization in speech therapy for
teachers, actors and broadcasters. University professor of oral
expression at the National school of performing arts A. C. Cabanellas,
Argentina, professor at the Buenos Aires University (UBA), Museo
Social Argentino (UMSA), Del Salvador University (USAL),
Complutense of Madrid (UCM) and Autonoma of Madrid (UAM), and
University Center Villanueva (UCM). She is an honorary member of
the Biocentric Foundation. She pioneered the development and
dissemination of Biodanza all over the world by the hand of her teacher,
Master Rolando Toro Araneda. Co-founder of the Lisbon School of
Biodanza. She was a teacher & trainer at the European Association of
Biodanza. She moved to Spain in 1990 and founded the Biodanza
School of Madrid, invited by Rolando Toro. She promoted the initiative
to nominate Master Rolando Toro Araneda for the Nobel Prize in 2002
for his works in Biodanza and Biocentric education.

Margarita Karger would be pleased to hear readers’ comments and

how they have used the information contained within this book.

Please visit her website to leave your comments and learn about
future events:

www.margaritakarger.com

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