Different countries are having different experiences of lockdown.
Biodanza teachers are faced with many questions, including
- How will we restart the classes? With physical distancing? With masks?
- When will people feel ready to rejoin a group?
- How long will it take to overcome fears around proximity and contact?
Virtual Biodanza during Lockdown
- As free thinkers we value freedom of thought
- Some teachers are opening their doors and inviting the whole world
- Respecting this freedom, my invitation is to reflect, to listen, to digest, and to share new ideas
- Why didn´t we offer Biodanza Online before the lockdown? Why are we starting to offer it now? Are we responding to the group´s request? Or are we making assumptions about people needing our support?
- If people are asking us to continue and we agree to do so, are we arranging a meeting on Zoom beforehand to ask them what their needs are?
- What needs are we meeting? The universal need for belonging? Or our own needs to be present in the world due to fear of being forgotten?
- Are we offering our services to our existing group(s) or are we offering open classes to everybody anywhere in the world?
- Sometimes it is harder to get 10 people to commit to a group process than to have 200 joining us to dance online from all around the globe. As a facilitator I might feel good about 300 people joining me to dance online – but is it Biodanza?
- What is the aim of online open classes?
- To work for self or for others? To work independently or as part of the Biodanza movement?
- Biodanza is made for complexity, which is a challenge that keeps on growing
- Biodanza doesn´t work with the imaginary (possibilities of idealisation)
- Start by connecting to the group and asking what people need. Perhaps they just need to be heard, to listen to beautiful music together, to fly in the memory of past encounters, to share the feelings sparkled by the music, and to spend precious moments together. This is special.
- We can offer biocentric gatherings, talk about our shared values, connect with self and with life – rather than imagining that we have a group in the room or that we are making contact with a body that is not there
- Many teachers have agreed to not accept new members in their online Biodanza classes
- Without reflection we could move from the physical reality into the virtual space and do the same things as before, e.g. invite people to “feel the touch, to go into that emotion, and to dance the emotion that arises with all its power”. With the risk that people could crash emotionally in the lack of physical containment. Would it be enough to say from afar, “take a deep breath, settle down”? There is no need to induce strong feelings when we are not physically present to give support.
- Biodanza is an education for life and a system of integration and self-regulation
- Right now people are hyper-sensitive and will react more strongly than in normal situations
- How can we deal with the different needs that arise within the same group? Just as families will prioritise their weaker member, the group will adapt to the person with stronger unmet needs. This is what Biodanza is about - awakening the capacity for syntony, feedback and togetherness. So the Biodanza group adjusts to the facilitator´s decision to adapt to the member with the strongest needs. In Biodanza classes, when someone begins to cry in the middle of the vivencia, the facilitator will offer support or ask someone to do it, and the group adapts. The feeling of being understood by the group helps to heal the pain. The group´s silent presence, empathy and heart-felt words bring peace and healing – this is what we learn in Biodanza.
- Biodanza is not about learning to dance. In Spanish we have two words for dance, bailarand danzar. Bailar is what you do in ballroom dance classes. Danzarefers to movements full of meaning – meanings that if we could express with words we would not need to dance.
- If someone just wants to dance and becomes impatient when a group member needs support, then they could be trying to escape the situation. We need to help them to connect. We mustn´t follow and adapt to those who are unable to connect.
- We can all dance at home. The challenge is how to connect with words during the lockdown.
- Some people are camera shy and feel self-conscious in front of the camera. Individual dances don’t need to be done in front of camera. It is hard to do a dance full of meaning in front of the camera. So we can explicitly say that it is OK to move out of the camera´s reach, hide in the corner, and feel their friends there…
- In my groups I ask them what they want. What dances? For how long?
- My suggestion is to focus on motor integration, e.g. tropical dances and animation of movement to feel alive. To focus on segmental movements, fluidity, self-embrace, self-touch, e.g. putting the hands in our heart, in our face, etc. And to use music for self-regulation, with water.
- Avoid triggering new emotions – and also sensual dances when people are alone, sensitive and unable to be with another… now is not the time to awaken such feelings
- Focus instead on connection with life and maybe people will be more open to take a risk and enjoy life when things go back to normal
- Quarantine is not the time to find solutions for life´s varied problems. If you live with a partner it is not the time to sort out your relationship. It is the time to be extremely polite and avoid conflict. It is also not the time to expect your children to be perfect.
- In Biodanza it is not the time for open classes, but to accompany and respect the mystery of this silence, to share our silence with our group
- Rolando Toro would probably invite us to go into nature and listen to its message. For that we need to quiet, and maybe that is enough
- For some people Virtual Biodanza is a lifeline
- If the group wants to continue it is OK to teach and to receive payment for our work. This is our job. We are not just friends, we are offering a service
- We can offer biocentric activities and include a few dances
- How can we adapt our invitations, our instructions, our enunciations?
- Our words have the power to induce vivencias, to bring people back to the here and now
Final words
- Every limitation is an invitation for something else
- For every closed door a new door will open
- Trust in yourself, trust your inner knowledge