These feet were made for DANCING!

 

“You were born to dance to the beat of your own heart.

To roam without cages, with the innocence of a child

and the free spirit of untamed horses.

I hope you laugh without stopping

live with abandon and love like that's all there is.

Stay wild, my wild, wild, child.”

_Kenny Chesney

We were born to dance, and that means, everyone can dance. 

 As life emerges, we see that babies respond to the beat of the music naturally which studies have shown they find engaging and pleasant.  In fact, humans generally have an innate predisposition to music and dance, and both are present in all cultures across time.  Movement plays an integral part in human development that continues throughout our whole life.  Movement, the form of dancing is a human universal and involves whole-body movements that make it a powerful modality for learning and development. 

A natural part of childhood is spontaneity and free expression.  Often this is physical, like jumping up and down with excitement.  It follows that dance comes naturally to children.  This ability to express through movement and dance is the basis of therapeutic dance modalities.  In Biodanza we intentionally create the environment for participants to connect to this spontaneous and innate capacity.  We use dance as a means of stimulating the genetic expressions of life in five ways - vitality, sensuality, creativity, affectivity, and transcendence.  Each of these expressions relates back to basic human instincts and drives that have been part of our evolutionary development as humans.  In a healthy environment, they are expressed fully and in an integrated way that facilitates our personal journeys of individuation.

That we stop dancing is tragic.  The path back to dance is filled with smiles of joy.  It is difficult to hold a grudge against someone with whom you are dancing.  And so, beyond our own personal development dance has a powerful role to play in bringing harmony to humanity.  Looking back, we see the baby connecting to rhythm and finding joy.  We scale that up to a group, and studies have shown that people who synchronise and dance together are disposed to pro-social behaviour.  Our human connection is opened up and through the dance, we can reach toward each other.  In a way we can say that dance not only plays an essential role in our human development but that this role is sacred as it opens the heart by transcending everything that divides us – be it ego, be it culture, be it grouchy mood!

We were born to dance because it is so powerful!

_Christos Daskalakos

VITALITY dance

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost.”

_Martha Graham – a pioneer of Modern Dance

Somewhere between the vital, energetic, and flexible bodies of childhood and now, things change. As we grow set in our ways, the body loses its flexibility as it follows predetermined patterns of behaviour. But even sadder are the bodies that become frozen in time. Frozen as defence mechanisms against emotional overload. Or frozen as disconnected machines due to trauma. This is noticeable in various movement or lack of movement patterns. Inflexible spines, dissociated limbs or even bodies that move zombie-like around the world, with hardly a twitch as if, to move means to be exposed, vulnerable and open to life.

The more we protect and shield ourselves from the world, the less we move. However, the stiffness and hardness of the armoured body means that it not only keeps out all threat and danger, but it also disconnects us from life. Rigidity blocks the vital energy and force that is our expression of life. Vitality ebbs away and the body becomes frozen.

Movement is the key. And even more powerful is movement that involves emotion and feeling. Dance is the movement. Music is the emotion. When we combine these in a safe and holding environment it is possible to unfreeze the body bit by bit. Each time we reach out into our dance we invite the body to let go a little more. Each time we connect to joy in our dance, we invite our heart to trust life a little more. Each time we find pleasure in our dance, we reconnect to life in deeper and more meaningful ways.

Vitality is expressed through the dance – and life takes up the invitation to reinhabit that beautiful body of the child, innocent, playful and full of joy.

_Christos Daskalakos

DEEP LOVE

“Biodanza is the poetry of the human encounter.”

_Rolando Toro Arañeda

DEEP LOVE is DEEP CONNECTION

Before gazing outwards searching to fulfill this most basic of human desires, stop, look inwards, and encounter the marvellous that is YOU. Love begins at home, in our heart and the most secret recesses of our soul.

Love has many qualities – from the wild and passionate to the steadfast presence of a wonderful friend. When we speak of DEEP LOVE it’s not so much the quality and intensity of the experience but rather the threads of DEEP CONNECTION that endures across time and space. This is ever so more important in a whirlwind world of fast technologies and virtual connections.

To feel deep love we need to embody the experience of deep and meaningful connection. To embody, means to move, to feel, and experience what this means – it’s not an intellectual exercise. Biodanza is a conscious dance modality that actively encourages the opening of the heart so that these connections can take place in an authentic and real way. Sometimes we dance to bring us back home to ourselves so that we connect again with positive feelings, opening the space for deep love to begin at home. Then there are dances in which we encounter and dance with the other opening the space for meaningful interaction and dialogue. But most beautiful of all, we can dance our way into that transcendent space that connects us to the totality of being.

Dance becomes a golden thread from my heart to the furthest reaches of cosmic love.

Dance becomes the key to DEEP LOVE.

_Christos Daskalakos

dance RE_SET

“Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.”

_H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Does society dictate your dance?

On Saturday I shared our Ecstatic Dance Journey with a group of men. On this rare occasion we outnumbered the women two-to-one which created a very different energy. As we danced around the fire, I couldn’t help reflecting on the amazing dance journeys I was witnessing. It’s not often that men will allow their vulnerability to dissolve, connecting them to the power of dance. In many cultures, men dancing is natural, even encouraged. However there is a narrow section of our society that puts many hurdles in front of men on their path to dance.

It is therefore all the more remarkable when the men come out to dance like this.

It got me thinking how society brainwashes us into thinking and acting in a particular way. We don’t realise this, which is why it is called “brainwashing.” Oblivious to the societal conditioning we go about our daily lives as usual, thinking and feeling that our behaviour is normal, and even more disturbing, that it is exactly what we want. But is it? How often is it that we delight when new experiences are offered to us? Yet, how often do we seek, and even try out what is out of our normal setting?

That is why making the effort to come and dance is so important. For many, it is strange. For many, society dictates how and when we dance. For many, sadly, it lies way beyond what is acceptable. Yet, once we make that decision and step into the dance, we connect with a myriad of possibilities. We experience ourselves differently as we feel our bodies sway to the rhythms. We experience others differently as we connect with them in the dance. And, we experience life differently – literally from another angle, or should I say many many angles!

To dance is to keep pressing the RE_SET button until one day we have reset ourselves all the way back to innocence, joy and fun.

_Christos Daskalakos