LANGUAGE IN BIODANZA
KATEŘINA STRNADOVÁ
LANGUAGE IN BIODANZA
LANGUAGE IN BIODANZA
KATEŘINA STRNADOVÁ
Pilsen 2025
Language in Biodanza
Kateřina Strnadová
Reviewers:
Jose Belda-Medina, PhD
Dr. rer. nat. habil. Marcus Stück, PhD
Approved by the Scientific editorial board of University of West Bohemia in Pilsen.
Proofreading: Donald Charles Kiraly, PhD
Graphic cover design: TAMDEM STUDIO, www.tamdem-studio.com
Typographic layout: Jakub Pokorný
Published by: University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Univerzitní 2732/8, 301 00 Pilsen, Czech Republic
1st Edition, 437 pages
Number of publication: 2432, Edition number: 55-006-25
Pilsen 2025
ISBN 978-80-261-1314-0
ISBN 978-80-261-1313-3 (printed book)
ISBN 978-80-261-1311-9 (Czech edition; printed book)
ISBN 978-80-261-1312-6 (Czech edition; online ; pdf)
DOI https://doi.org/10.24132/ZCU.2025.13140
© University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, 2025
8.1
8.1.1 The role of language in
8.1.2 The impact of Biodanza on the language of the participants
8.1.3 The potential contribution of Biodanza in the field of language learning
What is the role of language in Biodanza?
9.1.2 How does Biodanza affect the language of the participants?
9.1.3 What contribution can Biodanza make in the field of language education?
9.2 Limitations
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to José Mariano Neves, co-director of the Biodanza school in Algarve, Portugal, and current President of the International Biodanza Federation, for guiding my work in terms of content and much valuable information.
My thanks to Donald Charles Kiraly for his methodological guidance in the preparation and writing of this book and for patiently checking my English translations.
Many thanks go to Rolando Toro Araneda, founder of Biodanza, for creating a system that makes it possible to dance life and express oneself regardless of language or culture.
I respectfully thank Aneta Končulová and Marketa Hrabalová for their courage to bring Biodanza to the Czech environment and to open the first Biodanza school in the Czech Republic.
I also thank my classmates, the first Biodanza school students in the Czech Republic, who contributed to the creation of this monograph through their participation in the research.
Many thanks also to Denis Mainz who has been both a support and a mirror during the writing process and has the courage, patience and love to dance through life with me.
Preface
The topic of this monograph was born during a conversation with Donald Charles Kiraly whom I met at The Future of Education conference in Florence in 2018. While I was giving a talk about my work in the area of teaching translation to opera singers, Don, who has made a name for himself primarily in the field of translatology, changed the topic of his talk at the last minute and presented with utmost enthusiasm the results of applying an approach to foreign language teaching that he developed and called Scaffolded Language Emergence (Kiraly & Signer, 2017). Don’s approach to foreign language teaching incorporates aspects of previously established approaches such as the Structuro-Global Audio-Visual Method (SGAV), the Natural Approach, the Total Physical Response (TPR), the Notional-Functional Approach and the Communicative Approach. Scaffolded Language Emergence (SLE) is a complex approach that moves the emotional dimension to a prominent position in the classroom and that builds on the concept of emergent knowledge and skills while delaying the introduction of linguistic jargon and even grammatical rules. This change in focus immediately caught my attention. After returning home to the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (UWB), I enthusiastically talked about Don at the Institute of Applied Language Studies, where I work as the Vice-Director for Strategy and Development and also as a teacher of Italian. I started looking for ways to bring Don and the approach he had created to Pilsen.
A year later, just before the introduction of the most stringent anti-Covid measures, I managed to organize a small but international conference called A Day with Languages at UWB. Don, in view of the rapidly spreading epidemic and restrictions, chose not to attend in person but agreed to participate virtually. Not only did he present to us the origins and basics of his approach – Don calls SLE strictly an approach, not a method – in an online webcast with live interpretation in the conference hall, he even managed to train two native Spanish speakers in using the SLE approach. They let conference attendees literally experience the SLE approach in three consecutive one-hour demonstrations, in which some twenty linguists participated mentally and physically as they grappled with the objective of allowing Spanish to ‘emerge’ within them. Then followed a year when we could forget about meeting on site altogether, but in 2021 I received a small grant that allowed me to invite Don to Pilsen for a week and offer a full week of SLE training to any colleagues who were interested. By that time, Don and I had already begun a several-month journey to complete all the formalities that would allow him to move to Pilsen as a visiting professor for the entire year of 2022 after completing his career at Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz in Germany.
The same year I met Don, I also met Biodanza. My ‘first time’ came in the form of a one-day seminar focused on sensuality, held in a beautiful studio in Beroun and led by Aneta Končulová, the very first Czech woman to receive an international certificate and start spreading awareness of Biodanza in the Czech Republic. A friend, who took me to the workshop, and I really wished that such an activity was available in Pilsen, but Aneta had two small children at the time and it was not feasible for her to commute to Pilsen regularly in the evenings. However,
my friend managed to arrange and organize three separate evening lessons with Aneta, which I definitely could not miss. At that time Aneta had already come up with the idea of opening a Biodanza school in the Czech Republic. At first I was not at all keen to start the study again, which was to be a three-year course, with the prospect of teaching someone, as I was already a teacher for the most part. But before Aneta arrived in Pilsen again in the spring of 2019, this time with a one-day workshop aimed at promoting the newly opened school, I had a clear idea: If I wanted Biodanza to be a part of my life, there was no choice but for me to start commuting to Biodanza.
Aneta Končulová, together with Markéta Hrabalová, another Czech who offered regular classes and weekend workshops in Prague, opened the first ever Biodanza school in the Czech Republic in September 2019, and I, along with more than forty of my classmates, entered the first year. At first I perceived Biodanza as a nourishing bath for myself, but gradually I began to feel the desire to spread to others what Biodanza has to offer.
In January 2022, Don arrived at the UWB as my colleague and shortly afterwards I started my third year of Biodanza studies, in which the curtain was gradually lifted on the methodological principles on which the Biodanza system is built. On the one hand, I increasingly applied the SLE approach in my Italian classes, gradually daring to include physical activities and an emotional dimension, to use real objects and to increase interaction within the group; on the other hand, one day I realized that I was beginning to design my lessons according to the physiological principles of Biodanza. I have often enthusiastically told Don about my studies and mentioned how many similar aspects I find when comparing SLE and Biodanza. Until one day he asked why I didn’t combine the two approaches and use Biodanza to teach the language. I immediately started arguing that no, that’s not what Biodanza is for, convinced that the participant must fully and accurately understand what is being said. It wasn’t until I realized that I actually had no solid evidence for my belief. And that’s when I started to look to see if this topic had been worked on in the scientific domain. I was aware of attempts to combine foreign language teaching with physical activities such as yoga, but in the context of Biodanza, which is much more than just a physical activity, this topic has not yet been addressed.
Under Don’s methodological guidance, I prepared an online questionnaire for my classmates at the Biodanza school, focusing on language use in Biodanza, which was to become the source of data for my qualitative research. However, the first attempt to collect data, conducted with two classmates who had dropped out of the study shortly before, failed; their answers to my questions were very brief and evasive. It was clear that after the covid era, when so much activity had moved into virtual space, people had no desire to even turn on a computer, let alone type anything on a keyboard. So I decided to convert the questionnaire into a more human form and interviewed another classmate who was no longer participating in the study via an app that allowed remote communication.
Face to face and with the possibility to ask additional questions, to take into account the intonation and even the extra-linguistic expressions of the interviewee, I got much more extensive and usable answers. Every time I sat down at the computer to transcribe the
interview with one of the participants, it was like going for coffee together, hearing the voice of the person again, recalling his or her gestures, discovering the parasitic words, realizing which topics evoke the strongest emotional response in him or her. When I decided to work on my topic in a qualitative way, I did not know that this quality would also consist in looking into the soul of the other person. I almost had the feeling that the interviews could also be used for psychological analysis. And although everyone was asked the same set of questions, each of the participants approached my topic in a completely distinctive way. Each added some detail that I hadn’t even included in the questions, which drew my attention to the breadth of the topic. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the topic, which was originally intended to be dealt with in an article, was sufficiently voluminous and revealing to merit being treated in the form of a monograph.
Introduction
Biodanza as a system for the development of human potential has its origins in the 1960s in Chile. Biodanza was created and perfected until the end of his life by the Chilean educator, psychologist and anthropologist Rolando Toro (1924–2010) whose full name was Rolando Mário Toro Araneda. As will be evident especially in the opening chapters of this book, Toro’s personality combines the scientist’s urge to experiment, observe, explore, and develop the richness of theoretical knowledge along with the creative energy of a painter, poet, and dancer. Even before the creation of the Biodanza system, Toro was a public figure with a wide circle of friends among both scientists and artists, and he was also considered a philanthropist. He also referred to Biodanza as a fusion of art, science and love (Toro, 2020, p. 21).
The Biodanza system has its basis in scientific knowledge, especially in biology, and already during Toro’s lifetime Biodanza was the subject of research. This was mainly due to Marcus Stück (usually quoted as Marcus Stueck) from the Universität Leipzig, Germany, who later also founded the Biodanza school in Riga, Latvia. In a review study, Biodanza Effects on Stress Reduction and Well-Being – A Review of Study Quality and Outcome (Stueck & Tofts, 2016), Stück and his co-author report that between 1999 and 2016, thirteen studies and one systematic review of studies were conducted on Biodanza of which ten were conducted and published at the Universität Leipzig, one in Portugal, one in Italy and one in Brazil. Stück and his team aim is not only to continue the eight-point research plan proposed by Rolando Toro before his death, but also to maintain an international network of Biodanza researchers under the name Bionet (Bionet, 2023).
In addition to the countries already mentioned, Biodanza research has spread to other areas of the world. The Web of Science citation database offers 41 entries in the full-text search for the keyword Biodanza by the end of 2022. Of these 41 results, one was excluded because Biodanza only appeared in the profile of one of the authors, not in the body of the text. Of the 40 results, six were conference abstracts, two were conference proceedings papers (Greaves et al., 2016; Silva & Nadais, 2019), two cases of meta-analyses (Laird et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2020), six cases of systematic reviews (Altamirano Quevedo et al., 2021; Cadenas-Sánchez & Ruiz-Ruiz, 2014; Calçada & Gilham, 2022; Ferraro et al., 2021; Hickman et al., 2022; Kim et al., 2019), three works were a combination of meta-analyses and systematic reviews (Bravo et al., 2019; Murillo-García et al., 2018, 2022), and 21 were journal articles. Of these 21 articles, nine fell in the field of medicine and health (Carbonell-Baeza et al., 2010, 2012; Chiesi et al., 2021; Illesca Pretty et al., 2019; López-Rodríguez et al., 2012, 2017; Rosa, de Vita, et al., 2018; Rosa, D’Andria, et al., 2018; Segura-Jiménez et al., 2017), seven in the field of sport (Constantino Murillo & Espada Mateos, 2021; Hernández López et al., 2018; Rosa et al., 2019; Rosa & Madonna, 2020b, 2020a; Tafuri et al., 2019; Vergeer et al., 2021), three in the field of education (Castillo Retamal et al., 2019; Stueck, 2011; Stueck et al., 2013), and two in the field of psychology (Stueck et al., 2016, 2019). None of the articles or other results belong to the field of linguistics. Only one article from the field of social psychology describes the
impact of Biodanza on the expression of emotions and needs (Stueck et al., 2019). However, Biodanza is viewed within this research as a non-verbal component of communication as opposed to a verbal method leading to increased empathy in communication, such as respectful communication. Of the 40 results examined, seven were published in Spanish and the rest in English.
The Scopus citation database offers a total of 31 results when one searches for Biodanza in titles, abstracts or keywords again at the end of 2022, of which in 21 cases there is an overlap with the results of the Web of Science database. Of the remaining results, two were excluded. In the first case, the article was on the topic of human rights and Biodanza was mentioned as only one of the possible activities that older people engage in. In the second case, it was the inclusion of singing and dancing in five-minute stretches during work breaks to increase work productivity. The description given and the music used clearly had nothing to do with Biodanza, only one article on Biodanza was cited in the references, probably a misinterpretation by the authors of what could be considered Biodanza. Of the remaining eight results, two were book chapters (Chathuranga et al., 2019; Stueck & Villegas, 2017), one was a systematic review (Bidonde et al., 2018) and five were articles. Of these articles, three fall in the field of health (López-Rodríguez et al., 2013; Rosa et al., 2020; Schmidek et al., 2019), and two in that of psychology (Abad Robles et al., 2014; Giannelli et al., 2015). None of the articles or other results here fall into the field of language and linguistics either. Of the eight results examined, one was published in Italian, two in Spanish and the remaining five in English.
Published research related to Biodanza focuses mainly on the health benefits of Biodanza. Here, topics such as pain reduction (Hickman et al., 2022; Murillo-García et al., 2018, 2022; Segura-Jiménez et al., 2017), stress reduction (Chathuranga et al., 2019; López-Rodríguez et al., 2017; Stueck, 2011; Stueck & Tofts, 2016) or immunity enhancement (Stueck et al., 2013; Stueck & Villegas, 2017) predominate. Many studies also address the benefits of Biodanza on mental health, such as the development of emotional intelligence (Abad Robles et al., 2014; Calçada & Gilham, 2022; Constantino Murillo & Espada Mateos, 2021; Greaves et al., 2016; Stueck et al., 2019), and, most importantly, on overall well-being (Laird et al., 2021; Stueck & Tofts, 2016). Exceptionally, Biodanza has also been studied from the perspective of psychomotor development in the field of experimental pedagogy (Rosa et al., 2019). Research on the health benefits and positive psychological impact on Biodanza participants has been conducted on specific groups, including children (Greaves et al., 2016; Rosa et al., 2020; Stueck, 2011; Stueck et al., 2013, 2016; Stueck & Villegas, 2017), adolescents (Chathuranga et al., 2019; Rosa & Madonna, 2020b), students (López-Rodríguez et al., 2017), teachers (Rosa & Madonna, 2020a), visually impaired (Schmidek et al., 2019) or patients with neurodegenerative diseases (Chiesi et al., 2021; Rosa, de Vita, et al., 2018) or with chronic diseases such as autism spectrum disorders (Rosa, D’Andria, et al., 2018) and especially fibromyalgia (Bidonde et al., 2018; Bravo et al., 2019; Cadenas-Sánchez & Ruiz-Ruiz, 2014; Carbonell-Baeza et al., 2010, 2012; Kim et al., 2019; López-Rodríguez et al., 2012; López-Rodríguez et al., 2013; Murillo-García et al., 2018, 2022; Segura-Jiménez et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2020).
The list of papers dedicated to the use of Biodanza could be expanded by citing those that have not been indexed in the two databases mentioned above, but that are disseminated through professional online platforms such as Academia.edu or Researchgate.net. Many books have also been written on Biodanza, a number of journals are published regularly in relation to Biodanza and the latest knowledge on Biodanza, its theory and practical applications, is also shared at local and international conferences, congresses and symposia. Since its beginnings, when it was closely linked to Latin American countries, Biodanza has spread to five continents and has grown into a worldwide phenomenon.
From the above it follows that Biodanza is mainly seen in the context of its effects on the human body or on the human psyche, but no special attention has been paid to its linguistic aspects. This is despite the fact that awareness of Biodanza is spread by word of mouth or in writing, Biodanza itself is a system based on a theoretical model that is based not only on empirical research and observation, but also on the study of many written sources, and even the Biodanza lessons themselves are conveyed to the participants through language. While Biodanza works with the body, using specific movements in response to specific music, and thus communication is largely non-verbal, verbal expression is also an integral part of it.
Language is used in many different situations and aspects of Biodanza. Each Biodanza session includes a theoretical introduction and oral sharing. Although the individual dances and exercises are usually demonstrated to the participants in Biodanza classes and workshops, they are also introduced orally. Biodanza participants who choose to study in one of the Biodanza schools also work with written materials and are encouraged to write in the form of diaries. At the end of their studies, they then submit their own thesis, called a monograph, which is also written.
The aim of the present volume, which is also the author’s Biodanza monograph, is to: show the maximum breadth of linguistic aspects related to Biodanza, present the possibilities that Biodanza offers in the field of language education, highlight its linguistic specificities and outline the possibilities for further research of the language in Biodanza. The book thus answers the basic research question: What is the potential of language in Biodanza? This question is then approached from three perspectives, which represent the sub-questions: What is the role of language in Biodanza? How does Biodanza affect the language of the participants? What contribution can Biodanza make in the field of language education?
This book is divided into two parts, the first of which treats the topic of language in Biodanza theoretically. The aim of this part is to cover as much breadth of the topic as possible, including subtopics that may inspire other researchers to elaborate on it in more detail. This section is based primarily on a study of the works of Rolando Toro and his followers, whose ideas are related to the use of language in Biodanza and its possible absence, as well as to the question of the influence of Biodanza on language. In order to illustrate the language situation in Biodanza, in specific places also quotations from other sources are used, such as mainly the theses of students of Biodanza schools, Biodanza handouts, websites of Biodanza organizations and schools, or articles published outside journals included in the Web of Science and Scopus databases.
In the second part of the thesis, following the theoretical assumptions established in the first part, research is presented on the topic of language in Biodanza, which was conducted in the specific conditions of the Czech Republic, where the first ever Biodanza school was opened in 2019. The research took place between 2022 and 2023, when Czech students began to study the methodology and gradually began to conduct Biodanza lessons themselves. Therefore, the research results reflect the changing perspective of the participants of the school, which is conducted in the Czech language, in a situation where the study materials are still being translated, new vocabulary is being introduced, and the participants’ perspective is not burdened by previous experience with or a tradition of Biodanza in a given language and culture. The attachments include transcripts of all interviews conducted with research subjects, which can thus serve as inspiration or a source for extending existing research.
The work is being published in English, in order to be accessible to the widest possible range of readers, from linguists and language teachers to students or participants of Biodanza anywhere in the world, and also in Czech under the title Jazyk v biodanze.
Unless otherwise stated, all the texts referred to in this book were translated by the author from Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, and German into English. The English text was then subjected to a professional and linguistic revision by Donald Charles Kiraly, and the theoretical section to a content check by José Mariano Neves, the current president of the International Biodanza Federation. In order to make all the titles of the works presented comprehensible to the reader, their translations, which do not yet exist in English, are given in parentheses.
THEORETICAL SECTION
The theoretical part analyzes the linguistic aspects of Biodanza. The theoretical part aims to describe as wide a range of these aspects as possible, which may inspire other researchers to elaborate on them in more detail. This section is divided into four chapters, the first providing background information on the Biodanza system and the remaining three focusing on the three areas of language used in this system: the absence of language and spoken and written language. The different themes and sub-themes are presented through Rolando Toro’s and his followers’ ideas, focusing mainly on the language-related ones.
1 Language portfolio of Biodanza
The Language portfolio of Biodanza chapter introduces the Biodanza system from a language perspective. Subchapter 1.1 Origin of Biodanza is devoted to the origins and development of the name of this system, closely linked to Latin American countries. Subchapter 1.2 Spread of Biodanza focuses on the gradual spread of the system to five continents and lists the countries where Biodanza schools have been opened. Subchapter 1.3 Rolando Toro’s work and language introduces Toro’s written legacy, including a chronological order of his works and their translations into other languages. Subchapter 1.4 Definitions and objectives of Biodanza highlights the variety of definitions of Biodanza and the differences in the different language versions. Subchapter 1.5 Theory and terminology of Biodanza presents the basic concepts of the system and their linguistic specificities. Subchapter 1.6 Studies of Biodanza describes the conditions and possibilities for studying the system, including oral and written expression. Subchapter 1.7 Translations and interpretations in Biodanza looks at the linguistic diversity of this worldwide system.
1.1 Origin of Biodanza
Rolando Toro Araneda was born on 19 April 1924 in Concepción, Chile. In 1943 he graduated from the first Chilean school that trained future teachers, the Escuela Normal Superior José Abelardo Núñez, located in Santiago de Chile. From 1944 to 1957 he worked as a teacher in various Chilean localities (International Biodanza Federation, 2023a).
From the beginning of his teaching career, Toro took an experimental approach to education and enjoyed teaching in nature. As attested to by contemporary newspaper articles, Toro had an innovative spirit and developed creativity in his pupils. This is evidenced by the first Festival del niño, a festival for children, which he helped to promote in the 1950s, during which children had the opportunity to hold exhibitions of paintings and ceramics and to experience live music or didactic games in the heart of Santiago de Chile. Already at this time, Toro perceived that the human mind could not be separated from the rest of the organism, or that mind and body were two different names for the same reality (Cazzulo & Castagnoli, 2022, pp. 100–104).
If we look for the initial inspiration or, as Umberto Eco used to say, the seed idea that germinated outside the author’s consciousness long before the creation of the work, then the precursor of the system that is now registered under the trademark Biodanza® can be found in Rolando Toro’s letter to his wife from 1952.
“Calle Larga, Los Andes (Chile), 1952. My beloved Pilarcita:
At times I go out into the yard to look for you, to think of you. Lying on the straw, I wait for news. Today I looked at the wandering clouds, they left me with a feeling of joy, of serene and luminous life.
Here the school is very lonely. Next Monday, the children will arrive.
I have thought of a rhythmic science that arranges musically the natural movements of the body and above all the ‘acts’, so that under noble and spiritual forms it distributes the time, the intensity and the force – something like provoking the musicality of being.
What do you think, do you like it? Oh, my adviser, my love, all this makes no sense except when I can express it and discuss it with you!
I thought of reviving in childhood the great aerial, atmospheric myths that lie dormant in the ancestral depths of every being, of reviving in the unconscious ‘the passing cloud’, ‘the aerolites’, ‘the morning star’, ‘the man of fire’ – thus, giving birth to the illuminated drawings.
I looked at my face, as one who observes a path. In the end, I discovered the joy of loving you and of being loved terribly. It is not the years, nor the work, nor my behavior, but my love that has shone as if through stone, on my face.
Soon I will be at your side, my love, I will kiss and embrace you until you are weary of such tenderness.
Rolando”
36 years later, Pilar Acuña wrote to Rolando:
My dear Rolando:
“Fribourg, Switzerland, 28-7-1988.
Who could predict how many times the stars would pass over this golden haystack… I felt that a hundred years ago we were already talking about the same thing!!! Biodanza will go around the world many times!!
Pilar”
(Terrén & Toro, 2008, pp. 21–22)
Already in his role as an educator, Toro was considered an innovator by the contemporary press, and in his educational outline he spoke of awakening the potential and importance of art. Toro’s experimental educational model encompassed science, art and technology. Unexpectedly, he was invited by the dean of the Universidad de Concepción to give a series of lectures and subsequently to create the Laboratorio de Psicologia at the local Escuela de Educación. This opportunity motivated Toro to embark on his studies in psychology at the Instituto Pedagógico de la Universidad de Chile, which he completed in 1964 (Toro, 2012, p. 39).
In 1965 Toro was appointed Associate Professor at the Centro de Estudios de Antropología Medica de la Escuela de Medicina de la Universidad de Chile, where he worked until 1973. At that time, he was commissioned by the Sandoz pharmaceutical company to study the effects of LSD on creative activity in a project involving two hundred artists. Years of using this substance for therapeutic purposes provided Toro with important insights into states
of expanded consciousness, creativity, identity and regression. These insights now partially form the basis of the methodology of Biodanza, but with the difference that Toro found a way to achieve transcendent and creative states through expanded consciousness using music, dance and experience, but without the use of drugs (Cazzulo & Castagnoli, 2022, pp. 104–107).
During the same period, Toro also conducted research on violence in the prison Penitenciaría de Santiago and was a member of the research institute Instituto de Investigación del Hospital Psiquiátrico de Santiago. In 1966 he was appointed professor of psychology of expression and psychology of art at the Instituto de Estética de la Universidad Católica de Chile (International Biodanza Federation, 2023a).
Through his work in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and medical anthropology, Toro became familiar with various forms of psychotherapeutic techniques such as music therapy, Gestalt, psychodrama and many others. He applied the different techniques in the Hospital Psiquiátrico de Santiago, but in his words, none of them managed to penetrate the soul of the patient; they only touched his behavior. Toro then began to offer patients dancing to different types of music, which elicited different responses from the patients. Thus, in the 1960s, based on the records of his observations, he found that euphoric music stimulated the neurovegetative sympathetic adrenergic system, while soothing music stimulated the parasympathetic cholinergic system. In this way, Toro established the basic axis of what later evolved into the theoretical model that underpins the entire Biodanza system (Toro Araneda et al., 2014, pp. 26–27).
Further observation and participation in bold experiments during repeated visits to therapy centers in the United States led Toro to elaborate on the theme of dissociation and to place transceneny at the center of the two opposites of the neurovegetative system. Then, at a congress on psychodrama held in Buenos Aires, he introduced caressing as a method leading to personality change and as a therapeutic current for patients suffering primarily from psychosomatic disorders. His lecture caused a scandal and was met with considerable opprobrium. Toro presented this method at a time when – as he says – the importance of affection in laboratory rats was demonstrated, but only later did the results of René Spitz’s research on children become known, followed by experiments with depressed and elderly people. When caressing was shown to be good for rats, children, the elderly and depressed people, Toro extended the benefits of tenderness to other, ordinary individuals (Toro Araneda et al., 2014, pp. 28–30).
The transition from psychiatric patients to the general population occurred gradually. Patients were first joined by staff and then Toro began to offer his experiments to groups of family members and friends. In those years, however, he did not use the name Biodanza for his activities, but Psicodanza. Thus, alongside Psicodanza applied in clinical and university settings, the Juegos de Psicodanza, a form of theatrical Psicodanza, began to develop, from which the so-called sequential dances survived in Biodanza (Cazzulo & Castagnoli, 2022, pp. 111–125).
The theatrical plays Juegos de Psicodanza were first created directly in Toro’s home, which was thus transformed into a kind of laboratory. Musically, Toro aimed to eradicate musical rigidity, so that the participant would become more sensitive to the music of any era or genre, so that, for example, a lover of soul could feel moved even when listening to a Brazilian batucada, or a lover of low culture could appreciate a Beethoven quartet or a Bach sonata. In its final stage, the Juegos de Psicodanza took the form of a theatrical performance consisting of eight acts. Beginning in January 1973, these plays were staged in the major theatres of the Chilean capital and continued until the coup d’état in September of that year. These plays, as evidenced by the contemporary press, were accepted with great success by a part of society as a transgressive therapeutic art but were, at the same time, criticized and condemned by another part (Toro, 2012, pp. 58–83).
After Pinochet’s coup, Toro was questioned by the police. Chilean police had records of Toro’s actions for more than twenty years, whether anti-war or anti-militant, including newspaper cuttings. Fortunately, Toro was met with relatively humane treatment during his interrogation but was nevertheless advised to leave the country (Toro Araneda et al., 2014, p. 62).
In 1974, Toro moved with his family from his native Chile under its dictatorial regime to Argentina. There he offered the system to mastectomy patients as part of the Liga Argentina de Lucha Contra el Cáncer. His activity was eventually crowned by his appointment as professor emeritus at the Universidad Abierta Interamericana in Buenos Aires (International Biodanza Federation, 2023a).
During his years in Argentina, Toro also traveled and presented the developing system in Brazil. At that time, he already perceived that the name Psicodanza, which referred to the soul, was not ideal for a system involving the whole organism. Based on a careful semantic analysis on a trip back from Brazil to Argentina in 1977, he chose a new name for this emerging discipline, which replaced the original inadequate term during the following year. Biodanza, with its Greek prefix bio-, thus refers to life, while the French term danza refers to ‘integrated movement filled with meaning’. This gave rise to the metaphor of Biodanza, the dance of life, which, according to Toro, was fully in line with Roger Garaudy’s concept of ‘dancing life’ (Toro Araneda, 1991, pp. 4–5).
1.2 Spread
of Biodanza
In 1979, Toro moved to São Paulo, Brazil. There he founded the private institute Instituto Privado de Biodanza and worked at the Hospital Juqueri (International Biodanza Federation, 2023a). In addition to working with psychiatric patients and working for ten years in a private institute where he trained new Biodanza facilitators, Toro worked again with post-mastectomy patients during this period, further refining his system (Cazzulo & Castagnoli, 2022, pp. 127–128). In 1980, the Biodanza system was also used in a unique therapy for patients with Hansen’s disease (leprosy), which the medical team of the Lauro de Souza Lima hospital in Bauru determined to be significantly beneficial at the level of psychological and