About Biodanza

Biodanza comes from Bios meaning ‘life’ and Danza meaning ‘movement full of meaning’. Biodanza is a system of human integration stimulated by music, movement, emotion and expression.


The Biodanza system was created and developed in the 1960’s by Rolando Toro Araneda, a lecturer in Psychology and Medical Anthropology at the University of Santiago in Chile. He continues to develop and teach Biocentric Education around the world, as well as researching the effects of Biodanza on different types of Psychosomatic Diseases.

The first School of Biodanza in the Scotland was opened by Claire Lewis in 2005 to train new teachers of Biodanza through a programme of rigorous training in ‘vivencial' and theoretical learning about the effects of the Biodanza System on health and life style. The cycle of the school includes weekend courses, seminars, apprenticeships under supervision and the writing of a monograph (dissertation).


The concept of “Vivencia” refers to the “…intense perception of being alive, here and now. It is the intuition of the living moment” – Rolando Toro.



There are five essential elements of life experience that contain the seeds of our potential for love, health, and happiness. These are the five lines of Vivencia, on which the dances/exercises are based and through which we express our innate potentials:


Vitality

our vital impulse of life to face the world; our essential energy of movement

Sexuality

to feel desire and pleasure from our own sensuality and natural instinct

Creativity

to awaken our source of spontaneity and renovation; to live with courage and creativity everyday

Affectivity

the link with our instinct of respect, tenderness and solidarity; the communion of the heart between human beings and towards all life

Transcendance

to go beyond our own ego to reach higher levels of integration within humanity, Nature and the Universe.

Biodanza is a progressive experience to express all the lines of Vivencia and achieve greater levels of integration, within ourselves, our relationships and our community.