Acknowledgements
My path to this monograph is a path of a lifetime.
Everything I have in me came together.
I grew up in a warm nest where music vibrated through the house.
A nest where I was also encouraged to think and to articulate my daydreams.
A nest that gave me the space to develop a passion for science.
When I turned eighteen, I had to choose between music or science.
It became science.
A path that eventually led me to my passion in statistical genomics, a branch of statistics that allows us to learn from massive datasets how genes are expressed differently due to internal and external stimuli, ecofactors, disease, our genetic potential, etc.
This turned out to be a crucial component for my understanding of the Biodanza model.
On that scientific path music had faded to the background,
I slowly became more intertwined with my mind, and
my passion became somewhat mechanical due to the Cartesian thinking that is so prevalent in the academic world.
But fortunately, I am together with Fien.
Fien who, like a beacon, always brought me back to the here and now.
Fien who showed me again and again that life is so much more.
Fien who introduced me to fatherhood and blessed me with three sons.
Fien,
it was you who ultimately brought Biodanza into our lives,
so that knowing again could turn into feeling,
and that my head and heart could coalesce once more.
Biodanza that brings out the best in both of us,
that transforms our togetherness into what Rolando would call ecological couplehood,
because it forges our strengths into a shared passion,
into a new way of life.
And your path also brought Annette & Frank into my life.
First through your stories about the Biodanza teacher training,
then by taking me to their Biodanza Workshops in the French Ardennes,
and ultimately by fully supporting me to start in the new cycle of the teacher training.
A path that radically transformed me.
Music, movement, dance, passion, science, body, mind,
it all came together again and became one.
Annette & Frank,
you showed me how everything stems from intensely experiencing life, here and now.
Vivencia,
that started to transform me,
and that’s an art that you, Annette, understand like no other1.
In addition to the deepening vivencia,
you also stimulated me by exposing me to the many scientific concepts underpinning Biodanza.
These reignited my passion for science.
And then you did something incredible…
With your immense confidence,
you invited me to co-present the theory of the Biological Aspects of Biodanza in the teacher training,
which accelerated my transformation tremendously,
and culminated one year later in the first rough version of this monograph.
A version that I shared with Annemie and Frederieke,
while thinking back,
I blush lightly.
But your feedback was essential to convey my message towards Biodanza teachers and enthousiasts.
And Annette,
six months later,
with a novel masterstroke,
you amplified my momentum even more.
There at your little caravan in the South of France,
just before the start of the extension “the path of ecstasy”,
you invited me and Fien to sit together with Nadia,
one of the most inspiring people we’ve ever met…
And you asked her to guide my monograph.
Nadia,
during that extension,
I hung on your every word…
You speak the language of the heart,
that of life,
with such simplicity and depth.
And between the lines,
I could recognized the flavor of scientific discourse.
And on top of that…
came the phenomenal expression in your movement…
So inspiring!
In the months that followed,
with so much patience and passion,
you took me on a journey through my monograph.
With razor-sharp precision
you dissected it,
deepened it,
and brought it even more to life.
Every Zoom call was so transformative…
Rarely have I been so awake, alert, and lucid.
Every word mattered…
And each time there was yet another sentence that continued to resonate for days and formed the basis of an entirely new call.
You gave me so much insight and confidence.
You encouraged me to explore,
to deeply feel the theory of the biological aspects, and
to connect it with the Biodanza methodology.
And then you gave me your blessing to send my monograph into the world,
but not without one last nod to the richness of Rolando’s system:
“Et maintenant,
tu peux faire la même chose pour
les aspects fysiologiques,
les aspects psychologiques,
les prédécesseurs mythiques et philosophiques,
…”
At last, I would like to thank everyone with whom I have had the privilege to dance.
Particularly, the people from the teacher training, and from our Monday and Wednesday group in Bruges.
Our dances have shaped me,
and through you I could discover the beauty in my path as Biodanza teacher that lies ahead…
– February 2024 –
Echos of some of these vivencia can be found in the addendum of this monograph↩︎