by Federica Danielli and Carolina Lawless
“I don’t know how it started
Don’t know how to stop it
Suddenly, I’m dancing
To imaginary music
Something’s coming, so out of breath
I just kept spinning and I danced myself to death
Something’s coming, so out of breath
I just kept spinning and I danced myself to death”
In 2022 Florence and the Machine release Choreomania, a song about losing control of oneself by dancing. In 1518 a city in France is plagued by what seems to be a dance epidemic. In the fifth century b.C. Euripides publishes the Bacchae, a tragedy about rites in honour of Dionysus. From the thirteenth century a.d. we find testimonies of the “tarantella”, a traditional Italian dance.
These examples come from different societies, cultures, geographical locations and historical periods, yet what they all have in common is a primal connection to some form of ritual dance. Not the studied precision of classical ballet, or the joyful atmosphere of dancing at social gatherings: what we are dealing with is a primitive, unruly, mystical dimension in which one enters while celebrating certain rites – as different as they may be – through the medium of dance. There is a distinct opposition between these two types of movement – the strict rules of ballet and the frenzied craze of ritual dance – which in a way mirrors what German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche calls “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” impulses in his book The Birth of Tragedy. In this work, the philosopher describes the Ancient Greek civilisation as profoundly sensitive, a trait which determined its incapacity to deal with the chaos of reality. Consequently – according to Nietzsche – the Greeks felt the need to organize all aspects of life into two categories: the orderly domain of the god Apollo and the instinctual, chaotic realm of Dionysus. The latter explains the type of ritual previously discussed.
The triumph of Dionysian impulse is illustrated in the Bacchae, Euripides’ final tragedy. In this work, the author describes the Bacchic rites, which were not held in high regard at the time, due to their mysterious and frenzied nature. These rituals predominantly targeted women – an extremely marginalized group in Greek cities such as Athens – which is actually quite a common characteristic of liberatory dances. Tradition has it that once every two years women would leave their homes and collectively venture to mountaintops (ὀρειβασία), where they took part in rhythmic dances, alcohol consumption and ritual chants, all of which allowed them to experience a sort of ecstatic communion with the god, the loss of the so-called principium individuationis (awareness of one’s individuality), and deep emotional release. Nietzsche believed that in doing so, the Greeks channelled their primitive and irrational impulses in a structured manner, by allowing them to take over only in certain pre-established circumstances and thus creating a perfect balance between Apollonian and Dionysian forces.
Across cultures, ritual dance has long served as a medium for this kind of emotional release and psycho-spiritual transformation, but also for communal healing, addressing both individual affliction and collective imbalance, as is the case in the Italian traditional dance of the “tarantella”.
The term “Tarantella” derives from the word “Taranta”, used to describe a particular type of poisonous spider – the Lycosa tarentula – very widespread in areas like Sicily and Taranto in the XIX century. According to popular belief, if bitten by this spider, the only way to get rid of the poison was to dance with exaggerated and repetitive movements in order to, through sweats and moods, expel the venom. With these frenetic movements and music, the people affected by the bite of the spider could be purified and reach a form of catharsis, similar to the one achieved in the bacchanalia – some scholars even believe that these rites were directly inspired by the pagan ones in honor of the Greek god. While certainly similar, the two rites maintain some differences: the bacchanalia were a structured and codified ritual, whereas the “dance of Saint Vitus” or “tarantella” was more of a reaction to specific circumstances, functioning as a somatic processing mechanism. This way the body externalized inner chaos, manifesting it in convulsions, screams, or trance behaviour. It was this kind of behaviour which inexplicably hit the French city of Strasbourg in 1518, in what went down in history as “the dance epidemic”.
The bizarre event began in July, when a woman known as Frau Troffea began wandering around the town in a fit of convulsions, which appeared to the townspeople to be a sort of maniacal dance unaccompanied by music. Later – for reasons still somewhat unknown – hundreds of people joined in this exercise and were unable to come to a stop. The people of Strasbourg literally danced themselves to death – mainly due to exhaustion and dehydration – with an estimated number of 400 victims. Much like the traditions connected with the tarantella, the dancing plague was associated with Saint Vitus: Frau Troffea was believed to have been cursed by the saint and was sent to his shrine to be cured. The dance frenzy lasted a few months, eventually fading away in September. Today, scientists and scholars continue to debate over the causes of this phenomenon, opinions split between two theories: a spectacular case of mass hysteria caused by stress, or food poisoning due to ergot fungi. Straying from the scientific aspect, accounts of uncontrollable dancing can be found in many folkloric concepts, such as the Irish fairy reel – fairy music that compels humans to dance until death – or the Welsh Ellyllon – elves who play delicate harp music which disorients those who hear it – or even the pied piper of Hamelin – the man who guided the children of the village away from their homes, enchanted by the music of his magic pipe.
Traditions and legends regarding dancing and chanting do not limit themselves to the adult world. Children frequently gravitate towards activities of this kind, often through games. An example of this can be found in the playground game of “Ring a Ring a Rosie”, where children hold each other’s hands and go around in circles, chanting a nursery rhyme which some suggest describes a particularly traumatic event in history: the Black Death. As disturbing as that may sound, it was probably a creative way to explain the devastating circumstance in a way children could understand. Though not directly related to ritual dance traditions like the bacchanalia, the game maintains the function of expelling negative feelings and reaching a form of communal healing. This circular, vortex-like movement is intrinsic to many traditions involving dances: from the native American Sun Dance, to the Middle Eastern Sufi Whirling, to the early XX century painting “the dance” by Henry Matisse, where indistinct human figures become one with the nature surrounding them, connected through music and movement.
So, the next time you feel down and take a page from Taylor Swift’s book “shake it off”, turn it loose like the kids in Footloose, dance with somebody like Whitney Houston, or follow BTS’ advice and “roll in like a dancing fool”, just/you must know that you are taking part in a tradition as old as time itself.
MINGOMagazine 