Foreword
Vivre biodynamique: danser la vie
More than a hobby aiming at expression and body liberation or a mere recreational interlude, Biodynamic Dance is primarily a way of being fueled by the movement of life, which becomes its main drive.
Biodynamic Dance directly springs from Reichian theories showing the correspondence between psychic repression and the repressed body. Not only can it regenerate and detoxify the body down to the cell and nucleus level (see the orgonomic or regenerating movement) in order to activate the original pulsation which regenerates life drive, it also helps repair deficiencies in the body structure through an organic approach based on the different stages of ontogenesis (see the movement of the foetus, of birth, of the evolution of species…) Moreover, by restructuring a strong-enough and self-containing-enough ego, it triggers a powerful process that gradually enables us to meet up again with the integrity of our “primary personality”, the key to our unified being.
By awakening body awareness, by linking body, heart and mind, the inside and the outside, dancing helps us get rid of old neurotic patterns which are us keeping us the alienated prisoners of our tyrannical past. It puts us back instantly in the clarity of the here and now, which is our basic reality.
After body mechanics have been repaired and set in tune again, the next important stage in Biodynamic Dance is to learn and integrate the grounding, balancing and support of one’s body. Once this is learnt, movement just has to be triggered and flows effortlessly. This is why newcomers and people who think themselves beyond dancing age, find Biodynamic Dance so easy. It is not based on technique but on the awareness of the body’s natural movement in space when put in touch again with its cat-like flexibility and free-flowing psychomotricity. More technique-oriented dancers are not excluded as biodynamic movement also spares their muscles and joints. By inducing a letting-go process, more authenticity and softness will be found in their dance.
What a joy to behold the students moving freely beyond judgment or form, regardless of age and body types. Watching the dancers gliding lightly and smoothly, their flowing movements, one can hardly resist the impulse to join in and share the dance with them. With the same music, everyone expresses themselves exactly as they like depending on their particular feeling, revealing, through a style of their own, their originality and the full array of their creative potential.
Artists are particularly sensitive to this approach to movement and dance. It feeds their inspiration and frees them from the sterile reproduction of mental or artificial forms.
At an exhibition in a friend’s garden, I was amazed when Monique-Eliane showed me (after one year of dance workshop) her orchid paintings lined-up against the terrace wall. The flowers seemed to be pulsating with life, and not to mention Henriette’s wonderful abstract collages, whose blue depths and waves of fire, clearly suggested the ripples and spirals of the movement of life… Francis’sculptures looked like the voluptuous curves and swaying outlines of dancing bodies in the setting sun.
Transformation is most apparent during our beginners’ workshop “Initiation to Movement and Bio Dynamic Dance”. After one week, despite the intensity of their daily programme, students leave as if they had drunk from the fountain of youth. One could ask if this incredible outer transformation could be a short-lived youthful crush. Certainly not! In most cases, this eagerness brings consciousness, driving people to change their lives according to their deepest aspirations. From a biodynamic perspective, by being a mere living body, the dancing body may reconnect with its inner compass, awakening the instinct’s intelligence which is always tuned to life’s power. As the stream heads towards the sea, so does it bring us closer to our inner self and basic reality- a one-way process which, by weaving anew the link to our soul, also heals the body.
How shall I ever forget Annie’s radiant face during the final part of her dance instructor certicate? We knew her when she was depressed and weakened by chemotherapy and there she was, proclaiming “Now that I’m healed, I want to live the way I like!”
As for Christelle who had grown more and more disheartened by the burden of her problems… We were so excited this very day to watch her incredible determination to cope and fulfill herself. The two years’ training enabled her to find the strength to escape the li(f)e imprisonment brought on by depression and the deadly, suffocating seclusion of her family and circumstances. She broke with her lot, divorced her husband and immediately found a job to stand for herself and rebuild her life.
Danièle, a former student near retiring age, told me recently how dancing had infused meaning into her life when her relationship was going nowhere and her children were leaving the house to live their own lives. By showing her the important things such as friendship, love, beauty, nature and daily creativity, she could find herself. She stopped pretending and lying to herself and was able to find her own place (in particular by organizing workshops and dance courses). From then on, she could humbly take her part in the awakening of people’s consciousness and help a new world to be born in which being is more important than having.
Indeed, one who is dancing his/her life shows empathy, he/she is able to link himself or herself to others and resonate with the world. He/She is moved by the tree cut down to build a new car park, by the stress of battery animals who are being treated as mere consumption products, as much as by the elderly woman’s despair ghettoized in an old people’s home, by his/her purchasing power or petty problems. This person feels responsible and believes it is his/her duty to do something as he/she can only dance in tune with the world.
That is what being truly aware means. There is a real unconscious understanding deep down in your body which drives people to action.
Who are my students ? Men and women simply looking for truth using the self-evidence of their bodies. Of course, there are the occasional Mr. and Mrs. Organic, the therapist and the osteopath in search of less technical and more creative treatments, the budding artist, as well as the aspiring or the fully-grown one, everyone from the executive to the cleaning lady… There are young and (apparently) not so young people. Yet, when they are dancing, there is no telling them apart – they are all dancing with the same joy and hope that keeps them young forever.
As the angel says in Talking with Angels :
“True movement is the radiating look
True movement is the helping hand
Other movement, there is none…”
The truth is that one life-bearer can revive thousands of living dead, one truth-bearer can free thousands of slaves from fear and suffering, one hope-bearer can crack the steel and concrete bunkers of selfishness, indifference and greediness. Let’s find the nerve to fulfill our dreams and convince those who are still our opponents, let’s tempt them into believing in life. Our goal now is not to kill Goliath anymore but to pull him along with us in the spiral of life.
Dans ce livre, je développe les différents aspects de l’évolution du mouvement et de la danse biodynamique (thérapie, animation, formation, création, éveil à une conscience spirituelle du corps) par le récit des expériences et des rencontres importantes qui ont orienté mon parcours.
In this book, I develop different aspects of the evolution of movement and Biodynamic Dance (therapy, organization, training, creation, awakening to a spiritual awareness of the body) by telling significant experiences and encounters that have shaped my life.
I never wanted just to create another dance method or a new technique of body therapy, efficient as it might be. My main intention has always been to rediscover the basic laws of the moving body. They may enable us to integrate all the various dimensions of our being through a tangible, universal truth.