Grief Tending Retreat

Niraj: ‘Just wanted to share a bit of background to the upcoming 'departure from the norm' happening next month (Sept 18-20). I'm branching out to not only work with Biodanza but to integrate that work with the subject of grief. This stems from an experience 20 years ago now, when in May 2006 Pragit, one of the Directors at Leela died suddenly and unexpectedly overnight during a festival. I was scheduled to teach Biodanza the following morning and had prepared an uplifting, celebratory class to mark the end of the event. This was obviously no longer appropriate so I went back to my booklet of music and exercises and within minutes had rejigged things with a sequence of sad songs and moving music to facilitate a grieving ceremony to process the shock, trauma and loss everyone in the Community was feeling. It was kinda spooky how easy it was to do this. It was similarly eerie how well the session went, with several people commenting how powerful it was and how they had been able to express and clear grief from other, previous losses as well, and feel like it had been lifted completely in just that one hit!

I was astonished when at a large international gathering in Holland a few weeks later I offered the same subject, expecting a handful of dancers for whom it might be pertinent, to be swamped with over 120 people wanting  to "go there" and dance their grief. Once again the session was extremely potent and great relief from expressing long held emotion was felt across the board.

I knew then that this work was important and that I had a role to play in it, but besides putting on that original "download from the Universe" a few more times over the years, most notably at the first festival after covid, I haven't really engaged with the subject for which I felt the hand if fate tap me on the shoulder all those years ago. Until now. Thanks to my teaching partner Anna, who has consistently prodded over this past year or so to put something on around grief, as she has been active in this world for some time in Cornwall but without utilising the Biodanza system. It is this which I believe is the "game changer". The container of the group, the specificity of the music and the progressive and incremental steps of the sequence of exercises leads to opening a space where feelings of hurt, loss, sorrow and pain can be felt and expressed and then dance back up to the light, enabling a freeing of a burden often times you didn't recognise you were carrying.’

Anna: ‘Dance has been in my heart since age three. I trained and taught it professionally for years, then after my own near death experience, life nudged me towards somatic,  healing arts practices. I came to grief by sitting with others at the end of life and witnessing the letting go and deep sadness that is left behind. I set up No One Dies Alone Cornwall C.IC - where I sit with people who are dying just as often with the ones left behind and create grief tending spaces when it matters most. Sitting alongside death and dying shows me, month after month, how much grief people carry around with nowhere to put it down — sometimes for decades.... and not only from bereavement. Estrangement, divorce, adoption to name a few. Talking only gets you so far. Biodanza, gives grief somewhere to go, a body to move through instead of just words to describe it. That's why Ive been quietly prodding him about for the best part of a year. And it's why bringing our two worlds together properly — a whole weekend, not one evening — feels like it could be something really special. So glad it's finally happening.......’