Leading up to Christmas and the new year, you may be looking for ways to keep healthy and look after your body. We recently spoke to Kate Clements who shares her experience with the wonderful movement of Biodanza and how it has brought much gratitude into her life.

‘Latin aerobics’ – that’s how Biodanza was first described to me. A pretty inadequate description of the rich system that is Biodanza but hey, it got me to the first session.

When I was little I had a fantasy of being in a big hall and dancing around freely and happily. I was always mad for dancing – Irish, jazz, contemporary, flamenco or just on the road outside our home to my own song in the rain, I had always danced. From early on I got that I wasn’t cut out to be a ballerina. I wasn’t skinny and I didn’t like just repeating the same thing again and again but that thankfully that didn’t stop me dancing. I just kept dance as a hobby and closed the doors on having a profession that involved dance, or so I thought.

Until along came that innocent little invitation to a latin aerobics class.

At the time that this happened I was 29 and living in Johannesburg working in a not for profit organisation on environmental issues. And I desperately wanted change. Change in my life, change in my feelings and change in what I saw around me, in the world at large I guess. Talking and writing about social change had become empty for me. I wanted to get out of the office and experience ‘real’ change, with real people – directly. I had been through some pretty tough personal experiences and during my healing after these, I concluded that positive change in a person, a community, a society could not come only from external systemic change. It needed internal personal realisation and I wanted to find out how I could start doing this for my work.

So when I heard Carolina, my Biodanza facilitator, announce that the first course of facilitator training was opening in South Africa – I felt it was time to leap. And I did, and twirl and spin and fly and embrace and roll and flow my way through the next three years of Biodanza training. Wow, what a glorious ride it was, a blessing that arrived just at the moment I was ready for it. A ride that eventually took me to all manner of places all over South Africa – little villages, township clinics, government departments, fancy hotels with CEOs and their teams. All the while sharing the dance of life and getting people more connected to life, themselves and each other.

It was deeply moving, challenging and marvellous. I had found a calling that I loved it and I got to dance and contribute to people finding more joy, more health, more fulfillment in life.

A heart call of a different kind – love, eventually brought me back to Australia. For the past 3 and a bit years I have been living together with my wonderful life partner Claudio, rebuilding a life in Australia with the support of my family and many friends and co-directing the Biodanza School of Australia with Catherine Borgeaud.

It’s been a humbling and deep experience for me to be part of the beginnings of Biodanza here in in Sydney and Australia. To go from only 2-3 people in a class to substantial numbers of people in classes up to 3 times a week plus tending to the training of a new generation of facilitators. It has really shown me how life grows and so does Biodanza, organically as the environment and as we are ready.

I’m very motivated to keep working with Biodanza for many years. I’d love to see it really contributing to mental health and well being in Australia and other places close to Australia. In clinics, hospitals, schools, social projects – everywhere that people can do with injections of positive life-affirming energy, which nowadays is actually the case in a lot of places.

I’m also really keen to work with large groups in companies and organisations, moving them (literally) towards being more in touch with strong, vital and compassionate life energy as they go about their work and daily life.

More and more we are craving real connection but do we know how create it? We are well trained at being electronically connected, but what about at being present with ourselves and each other? We need to practice this for it to develop and actualise in our everyday experience. Biodanza is a well-grounded system able to offer this practice in different environments.

I feel an enormous gratitude for everything Biodanza has brought into my life including bringing me into contact with the feeling of life as an amazing dance, continuously unfolding around and within me. If the chance to do Biodanza does happen to come across your path, I invite you to take notice; our destiny has a way of finding us, sometimes in disguise.

How does Biodanza work?

Biodanza is done in 90-120 minute sessions on a regular basis, weekly where possible, in a group. Participants are invited to a series of dances and exercises that combine the power of music, movement and feeling. This powerful combination results in biochemical changes in your system and initiates experiences of optimism, acceptance, presence and connectivity. This lays strong foundations for new patterns to develop.

For more information about Biodanza such as the origin of Biodanza, its popularity and its many benefits, please visit www.Biodanza.com.au.

If you are ready for a Biodanza experience, you can also find a class near you on the website or send an email to kate@biodanza.com.au