16th Biodanza African Encounter
@ The Nest, Drakensberg, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa
Friday 9 to Monday 12 December 2022
Heart of Africa
Eagle Morphs to Life from Mother
(Artist: Dee Zoto)
We all emerge from Earth,
taking flight to rise out of ourselves,
Looking to the Stars, the Cosmos,
to the vastness of the sky for inspiration.
Only to return, at last, to where the mystery began.
This Dance with Life opens a doorway to answers
that were there all along.
The 16th BIODANZA AFRICAN ENCOUNTER proudly presents International Facilitator:
Hélène Jeanne Lévy Benseft
on Identity & Integration
‘So Close to You’
We seem to grasp at understanding the Abstractions, the Limitlessness, the Unity, the Everything and the No-thing that is Life, that is Love of Everyone and Everything
This Encounter is an Opportunity to Embrace our Profound Feelings in Vivencia
“We are often deprived – by the word – when we wish to transmit what constitutes the core of Biodanza. Our memories of Vivencia then whisper to us sensations, emotions, images, perceptions imbued with colors and flavors.
And even then, words are rarely up to the task of describing all that awakens in us when we evoke our experiences. Poetry and metaphors may sometimes come to the rescue.
During the South African Encounter in December 2022, I will share with you a vision of what can be the essence of this marvelous system that is Biodanza. I hope you will find in it an echo of your own dances, your own Vivencia. And for you who will be with us for the first time, it will perhaps be a resonance with something that unites all beings, beyond all distinctions and differences, whether they are of time or space.”
« At school they didn’t tell you about the moon and its phases,
about the earth and its cycles.
They didn’t tell you about death as birth.
They didn’t talk to you about sex as sacred.
They didn’t tell you about the body as a temple.
They didn’t tell you about the phoenix in your heart.
They told you to adapt, to integrate.
They told you to always sit in the same place.
They told you to shut up and listen to a single point of view,
To study until you get bored.
In school, no one ever mentioned the power of nature, of the elements.
No one ever explained the power of your thoughts.
No one has ever shared with you the force triggered by connecting to the other’s universe.
No one has really let you explore the mysteries of life.
They hijacked your time.
Here and now, all this is being given back to you,
for you by yourself – though not alone – to explore.”
“The Purpose of Biodanza is a unique exploration leading you back to the essence of life where you have time to feel, to move, to express yourself, to share, to connect. Where in the space of a group you feel welcome and part of a reality much bigger than what you had been taught.”
Hélène
Hélène Jeanne Lévy Benseft
Fluent in: French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Hebrew.
Hélène Jeanne Lévy Benseft, certified Teacher of Biodanza since 1984 and Didactic Teacher since 1996. Director of the Rolando Toro Biodanza School «Mediterranean» (Nice – France), since 1998. She is a pioneer of Biodanza in France, having introduced it in this country in 1984.
Co-director of the Rolando Toro Biodanza School of Montréal (Québec – Canada) from 2001 to 2009.
Member of several Biodanza Schools Teachers Boards in the US, Italy, Israel, and Europe.
Member of the International Dance Council (UNESCO).
Certified Didactical Teacher for the following Extensions of Biodanza: ‘Identity and the Four Elements’, ‘Aquatic Biodanza’, ‘The Minotaur Project’, ‘The Tree of Desires’, ‘Identity and Self-Esteem’, ‘Identity and Gender’, ‘Speech in Biodanza’.
Specialized and Certified: in ‘Biodanza for Children and Teenagers’, ‘Biodanza and Bio-integrative Massage’, ‘Biodanza and Neo-shamanism, ‘The presentment of the Angel’, ‘The Minotaur Project’, ‘The Tree of Desire’, ‘Clinical Biodanza’, ‘Biodanza with Clay’, ‘The Evolution Project’, ‘Identity and the Four Elements’, ‘Deep Femininity and Masculinity’, ‘Laboratory of Creativity’.
Author of an essay about the archetypes “Learning with the Archetypes” (soon to be released in English, available in French and Spanish.
She is also co-writer of the book ‘L’homme qui parle avec les roses’ (The man who talks to roses), together with Rolando Toro Araneda, Bruno Ribant and Bruno Giuliani.
Member of the CIMEB network and coordinator for France, Hélène Jeanne is also involved in the Didactic Teachers training head team since 2012.
B.A. in Modern History (College University of Haifa – Israel)
M.A. in French Literature (College University of Haifa – Israel)
Creator, former director, and educator of the alternative school «Escola Officina», applying the pedagogical methods of Célestin Freinet (in Curitiba – Brazil).