Reclaiming Choreomania

We often hear about Choreomania as almost a bizarre and unexplained phenomenon. „Dancing mania (also known as dancing plague, choreomania) was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically sometimes thousands at a time.“ To ravers, such an image sounds very familiar.

Drawing from Dr Kelina’s Gotman work in the book Choreomania: Dance and Disorder, this talk will think through the notion of ‚wild‘ dancing – dancing that transcends or disrupts habitual cultures of collective corporeal life. What it means to dance in a way that is natural, unbridled, ‚wild‘ or untamed – as well as disorderly – this talk will aim to reclaim ‚choreomania‘. To think another order of ‚epidemic dancing‘, dancing that refuses to heed no trespassing zones and refuses to submit to diurnal rules of productive labour.

with Kélina Gotman (Choremania, London) (King’s College)