Psicoballet: five decades of its creation

By. Dr. Jesús Dueñas Becerra. Honorary Member Roman School Rorschach, Italy. Active Member International Dance Council (CID-UNESCO)

Dr. Georgina Fariñas García, head of the UNESCO Psicoballet Group, is the creator of this genuinely Cuban treatment method, which has transcended the geographical-cultural borders of the Cuban archipelago, which saw it born and grow in the 1970s. century. Since its inception, Psicoballet had the unconditional support of the prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso (1920-2019), director of the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC), Cultural Heritage of the Nation, and honorary member of the International Dance Council, and Drs. Abelardo Ramirez (1938-2002), Vice Minister of Public Health, Eduardo Bernabé Ordaz (1921-2006), founding director of the Psychiatric Hospital of Havana, and Eusebio Leal Spengler (1942-2020), historian of Havana.

In Psicoballet, science and art merge in a warm embrace to contribute to the bio-psycho-socio-cultural and spiritual balance of children and young people with special educational needs and older adults who receive its benefits, both therapeutic and rehabilitative. Since 1973, the date of its appearance in the field of Cuban public health, Psicoballet has been applied to more than 25 thousand people, with satisfactory results from the psychosocial, human and spiritual points of view.

In 2008, after winning the Special Distinction Award at the XIII Science and Technology Forum, Psicoballet moved its headquarters to the Casa África Museum, in Old Havana, with the ARTEVIDA project for a Culture of Peace, aimed especially at young people with disabilities. cognitive. This project has the valuable help of the intellectual Alberto Granado, director of the institution, and the Office of the Historian of Havana.

Psicoballet has branches in the largest island of the Antilles and abroad, while the International Dance Council (CID-UNESCO) recently established it as the International Psicoballet Group. Dr. Amelia Thereza de Moura Vasconcellos, Brazilian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, believes that Psicoballet, «as a work of infinite love, is a genuine expression of revolutionary humanism in the homeland of the venerable father, Félix Varela, José Martí and Don Enrique José Varona, foundational stones of island psychology» On the other hand, it shows, without a doubt, «that in the Pearl of the Caribbean the human dignity of the different other is respected, because a beautiful ethical-humanist principle becomes a tangible reality, not a virtual one: YES to diversity, NO to the exclusion».

In this scientific-cultural context, there is a practical demonstration that leaves an indelible mark on the sensitive memory of the public: the Psicoballet performances starring children and young people with special educational needs, patients with long-term mental conditions and elderly people. The emotional reaction that this fact generates is indescribable in words, because it caresses the intellect and spirit of man and invites him to bless the loving and devoted "hands that [according to the Apostle] «rectify those mistakes, and sweeten those errors. shadows of the blind mother creation». If this artistic-therapeutic method, valued by Commander Fidel Castro Ruz (1926-2016), historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, as an «original contribution to the development of Cuban psychology and culture», only served to awaken their faith and hope to these people, Psicoballet has a reserved space in that better world to which humanity aspires.

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