BIO DANZA FOUNDER
Born in Chile. In 1964 he graduated from the School of Psychology of the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile. In 1979 he moved to Brazil, where he established a Private Institute of Biodanza, achieving the expansion of this system throughout Latin America. He also worked with the mentally ill at the Jiqueri Hospital in Sao Paulo and with mastectomized women at the Radio Institute
In 1989 he emigrated for eight years to Milan, Italy where he worked with Parkinsons and Alzheimers patients in the cities of Como and Carese. He also created Biodanza Schools throughout Italy and in 1998 returned to Santiago de Chile from where he led the Biodanza movement consisting of Centres and Training Schools globally. In 2001 he was appointed to apply for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Biodanza and Biocentric Education, at the House of the Americas, Spain. In 2006 he was appointed Doctor Honoris Causa of the Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil.
Rolando’s research was developed over many years until it reached the elaboration of a theoretical scientific model based on genetic potential inherent in humans. In short, he proposed with Biodanza that each person is responsible for his/her own personal growth, and that this can be integrated into daily life, creating new motivations to live and above all maintaining a lifestyle based on health and well-being.
He created the Biodanza system of human integration, and its methodology uses music, singing, movement and group encounter situations. As a painter, he has exhibited his works in Brazil, Italy and France. He has published books on poetry and psychotherapy, which have been translated into several languages.
Manifest
Rolando Toro Araneda
We are the memory of the world
We have to remember what is in our cells
The fruits of summer
Voluptuous love
The ability to put yourself in the place
Of each others
The contact
The courage to innovate
The hug, the goodbye and the encounter
The sea in our skin
The music of life
The dance of life
Biodanza returns us
Ancient memory
The absolute possibility of love
BIOCENTRIC PRINCIPLE
According to the Biocentric Principle, the universe exists because life exists and not the other way around. Life is not a consequence of atomic and chemical processes but of a guiding structure of the construction of the universe. The relationships of matter-energy transformation have been the integration of life.
From this vision, Rolando Toro speaks of the sacredness of life
The Biocentric principle was developed by Rolando Toro Araneda in the 1970s.
It tries to explain everything that exists depending on life, just as the geocentric paradigms (the earth is the centre of the universe), heliocentric (the Sun is the centre of the cosmos) and anthropocentric (man is the centre of creation) existed.
The historical-cultural disconnection of the cosmic matrix of life is what has generated, over time, successive destructive cultural forms. Both the body-soul or matter-energy dissociation and the repression of the paradise experience have led to the profound existential crisis we are going through today in the world.
In the Biocentric Principle life is the centre be it plant, animal, planet earth as Gaia – living organism – and the universe as a living being. We try to tune in to the information of life, from the cosmos to the cell, which is impregnated through instincts, organized differently for each species.