Choreomania

When crises are over, people often feel the need to dance. In the closing scenes of the recent satirical antiwar movie, ‘Jojo Rabbit’, Jojo and Elsa dance to celebrate the end of World War 2. And when Jacinda Ardern declared that New Zealand was COVID-free, she coyly admitted that she ‘did a little dance’.

Dancing is one of those wonderful, expressive human activities that has social, erotic, competitive, ceremonial and even religious functions. While it is usually associated with freedom and joy – this is not always the case.

Had we been in Strasbourg in July 1518 we might have felt tempted to join Frau Troffea when she started dancing in the streets. No one knew quite why she was ‘tripping the light fantastic’ – there was no music she was responding to – but soon others were joining in. Initially she seemed to be having fun, but the dancing continued in public view, day and night, for days and days, and she was clearly suffering.

This was not the first time that this had happened. At least ten similar episodes of spontaneous dancing had broken out in Germany over the preceding 150 years – and more were to come. The dancers were known as ‘choreomaniacs’ and they had no apparent control over their behaviour. Many contemporary writers (including physicians, priests and local councillors) documented this strange phenomenon and the participants. People suffering from the ‘dancing plague’ were described as foregoing food as their sweat-drenched bodies, blood-soaked shoes, and flailing limbs were convulsed by the mania of the dance.

Strange events generate reasons and causes which lead to desperate solutions. While not aware of ‘herd immunity’, the civic and religious leaders in Strasbourg proposed a herd intervention. More ‘controlled and structured dancing’ would be the solution. So, musicians and professional dancers were recruited, and guildhalls opened for the dancing to take place in.  However, this only exacerbated the problem and the dancing became ‘contagious’. Within a week, more than 30 people had joined in; by August over 400 people were dancing senselessly. It is said that at the peak of the ‘plague’ around 15 residents were dying each day from heart attacks, strokes and exhaustion.

The next solution was one we are used to, and was certainly more effective. It utilised extreme isolation and containment. All dancing was ‘shut down’, except for weddings where people could dance to stringed instruments, but not (the more provocative) tambourines or drums.

After almost a week, when efforts by her husband, doctors and the authorities had failed to stop her from dancing, Frau Troffea was bundled into a wagon and taken to the shrine of St Vitus  for three days – as it was believed she had been cursed.  This proved effective and the ‘St Vitus cure’ became widespread. Within a few weeks, the mania abated. While the ‘dancing plague’ occasionally returned, it was last recorded in Europe in the mid 17^th century.

Eight years after the outbreak in Strasbourg, the physician and alchemist, Paracelsus, visited the city to try and establish the cause. At the time, contemporary explanations included demonic possession and ‘overheated’ blood. Paracelsus placed the cause of the dancing in the minds of the choreomaniacs and suggested that dancing might be due to voluptuous desires (choreo lasciva), or intense or angry thoughts (choreo imaginativa), or to bodily urges (choreo naturalis).  More recent theories have included the behaviour of herectical sects seeking divine intervention; or a fungal disease (ergot) contaminating the flour used for bread and causing ergotism (St Anthony’s Fire) which is known to produce convulsions.

However, the most compelling theory comes from the American medical historian, John Waller, in his book ‘A Time to Dance, A Time to Die’ (2008). Waller believes that the dancing plagues were a form of mass psychogenic disorder or ‘mass hysteria’. These rapidly spreading events with unusual symptoms, without a clear physiological basis, occur under circumstances of extreme stress.

In 1518, Strasbourg had suffered a number of overwhelming stressors including a series of famines, and outbreaks of smallpox and syphilis. These stressors occurred in a city whose local saint, Saint Vitus, was the patron saint of epileptics and dancers. (In the late Middle Ages, people in Germany celebrated the feast of Vitus by dancing before his statue). One of the fears, originating from a Christian church legend, was that if anyone provoked the wrath of Saint Vitus, a Sicilian martyred in 303 A.D., he would send down plagues of compulsive dancing. As invoking the aid of St Vitus had cured Frau Troffea and others, this theory had a lot going for it.

Episodes of mass hysteria have appeared at other times and in other places. These include: ‘tarantism’ (dancing the tarantella) in 13^th century Italy – which was erroneously believed to be due to a bite from a tarantula;  the ‘meowing nuns’ in France during the Middle Ages; the Salem Witch Trials in late 17^th century America; the ‘laughing epidemic’ in Tanzania in 1962; as well as several crowd fainting experiences around the world.

Similarly, it is worth remembering that there are also a range of ‘culture-bound’ syndromes. These are particular ‘physical states’ with unusual symptomatology that arise in certain cultures when individuals perceive themselves as being under extreme pressure. Examples include: ‘Running Amok’; ‘Ghost Sickness’ – where a ‘visitation’ by a deceased person can cause physical symptoms; Koro – a disorder of extraordinary obsessional anxiety with the belief that one’s genitalia (penis, nipples or vulva) is receding into the body; and Tajin kyofusho – another anxiety disorder where the sufferer feels like a burden to others due to causing them embarrassment.

Humans are a very unusual and creative species. Considering the extraordinary pressures that many have experienced recently – drought, fires, coronavirus, economic hardship – and the ongoing uncertainties about the future as indicated by the record negativity in the current news sentiment index, I would suggest that you ‘approach with extreme caution’ anyone who you see dancing.