The first Northern Biodanza Festival brought together a rather special group of people from all over the country. Not quite from Land’s End to John O’Groats but at least from Cornwall to Scotland. It was a group with a certain magic to it, because in the blend among us there were some remarkable properties. Supported and nurtured by the Biodanza there was the power to want, to feel, and to express with simplicity, to expect magic to happen, to say ‘yes – why not?’ To organise and to commit, to be generous with each other, to be accepting and easy.
After the Festival we wanted to stay connected
After the festival Facebook provided a way of staying in touch and easing the way ‘back into the world’. Perhaps two weeks later, through various posts and comments and over a number of days a thread ran something like this:
“Really missing you guys.”
“Yes, it’s a shame we can’t do a vivencia on facebook.”
“Why can’t we by Skype?”
“That would be brilliant!”
“Yes”
“What do you think teachers? Is it possible?”
To which I, like everyone else I imagine, thought, ‘What a lovely sentiment, but: No – of course online Biodanza it’s not possible.’ Something stopped me writing this though and likewise no one else posted the obvious ‘No.’ It would have seemed too callous.
Some days later following an unrelated post came this comment:
“When are we doing biodanza online by skype Rupert?”
“Name a day,” I continued the joke.
“Sunday”
Is Biodanza online really possible?
At this point I started thinking about it. What was possible? How could it relate to ‘actual’ biodanza? What were the pitfalls? What could people get out of it? What exercises could we conceivably do and how could they form part of a whole that was greater than the sum? This is what I came up with:
Nine of us from the Northern Biodanza Festival attended. Zoom arranged the picture from our webcams in a grid so we could all see each other.
It brought us together
We started with an opening circle. We held our arms out wide as if we were holding hands and we danced as if in a circle together. It was silly and funny and sweet, and it did what an opening circle does. It brought us all together, arms out wide, seeing each other, coming present into our bodies and into the vivencia. We opened to “Days of the Dancing” which made a celebration of our re-union and of being together in the space. Then we walked – zig zagging around each in whatever space we had – towards and away from the webcams.
If you are a teacher and want to know what happened you can read thee full article in the teachers learning zone click here
Rupert tells us
In some ways it could be said that in the approach we took we were playing at Biodanza. I do not mind this. There is a curious logic about it. What you get when you play at Biodanza is… well… Biodanza.
Are online vivencias possible?
Many teachers joined a discussion on facebook questioning whether this session could actually be called Biodanza, because of course, a Biodanza session is about a group of people physically meeting and dancing together, so i’ll just leave it there!
This blog post was written by by Rupert Meese
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