“Amidst our people here is come, the madness of the dance.
In every town there now are some, who fall upon a trance.
It drives them ever night and day, they scarcely stop for breath.
Till some have dropped along the way, and some are met by death.”
On June 24, 1374, people on the streets of Aachen, Germany inexplicably began dancing
around and reportedly experiencing hallucinations with an apparent case of "St. John's Dance"
or "The Dance Plague", with their numbers swelling into the thousands before the event
ceased.
This was the first of the two best documented cases of this phenomenon, though this sort
of thing wasn't unheard of, with instances as far back as the 7th century.
It also periodically popped up all the way up to the 17th century.
For example, another extreme Dance Mania event that was well documented happened in July
of 1518, starting with just one woman, Drau Troffea, who began to dance about in the street
in Strasbourg, Alsace.
Soon others joined her for a near month long dance orgy, with the numbers swelling throughout
the event and a few hundred participants dying from cardiac arrest, physical injuries, and
extreme exhaustion.
In another early incidence of Dance Mania, this time in Erfurt, Germany, people began
dancing manically on a bridge over the Moselle River, which then collapsed killing many of
the 200 participants.
Those who survived were taken to a chapel that was dedicated to St. Vitus, hence why
Dance Mania is also sometimes referred to as "St. Vitus' Mania".
Depending on where Dance Mania occurred, the reaction from the general populace varied
greatly.
For instance, in Italy Dance Mania was thought of as a good thing, with it being used as
a cure for people bitten by something poisonous or if they thought they were bitten or came
in contact with someone who was bitten.
However, in other place, you were libel to be killed if you took part, such as in 1507
in Spain when 30 women were burned alive after being seen dancing hysterically.
On that note, while a mass number of people suddenly breaking out in hysteric dance and
sometimes song may sound funny and today YouTube gold, in fact it was anything but at the time.
The people would continue vigorously jumping and dancing about, sometimes also screaming
out or chanting, until completely exhausted at which point they would collapse and some
would die from cardiac arrest or injuries suffered from their violent dance.
Those who didn't die, once exhausted, would reportedly sometimes twitch around on the
ground, foaming at the mouth and gasping, until they were able to once again get up
and continue their dance.
This Dance Mania in some cases would last for weeks or even months.
Besides dancing, participants would also sometimes roll around in the dirt squealing and acting
like animals; others would rip off their clothing and sometimes would begin having sex with
other Dance Mania participants.
Some also would scream for people to beat the bottoms of their feet while they writhed
on the ground or would other times try to get people to throw them high in the air.
Others would make crude or sexual gestures at those around them or threaten to attack
spectators who refused to join in the hysteric dance.
At the time, it was thought that this hysteric dancing was possibly caused by demons possessing
people, a curse, "hot blood", and a number of other wild guesses.
Today most take a more pragmatic view of things.
One hypothesis is that these "Dance Mania" events were carefully organized, possibly
by a religious cult or cults who were performing some ritual or other, not unlike certain rituals
Ancient Romans and Ancient Greeks used to perform.
This is somewhat supported by the fact that many of the instigators of Dance Mania events
were often people on pilgrimages.
Normally this sort of behavior would have gotten them in a lot of trouble, but masking
it as a mass outbreak would sometimes allow them to perform their ritual publicly without
retribution, though not always as previously noted.
Another popular hypothesis is that it was caused by ergotism, also called "St. Anthony's
Fire".
Specifically, the rye and other food stuffs eaten by people may have been infected with
a fungus called Claviceps purpurea, which in turn contains alkaloids that cause hallucinations,
seizures, mania, convulsions, irrational behavior, and unconsciousness.
However, it is also associated with loss of limbs due to restricted blood circulation,
and these incidents of Dance Mania don't seem to be connected with many of the people having
their limbs become gangrenous.
Yet another popular hypothesis, which seems the most reasonable, is that due to the extreme
stress people were often under during times where Dance Mania popped up, such as rampant
plagues, floods, poverty, etc., it simply started with a few people snapping and others
joining in, not unlike the just as bizarre phenomenon of Running Amok, where people in
the Malay culture would occasionally randomly run amok, killing or trying to kill anyone
they came across only to later recover their senses and return to normal, if they weren’t
killed first.
Because it was thought an evil spirit caused this, rather than the person doing it of their
own free will, punishments for someone who ran amok and survived were typically light
or even non-existent, with the person sometimes getting off scot-free.
However, usually the person would be killed while running amok and some speculate this
was generally the point of doing this as people who ran amok were and are often those who
suddenly experience great trauma in their life, like the death of several loved ones
or the loss of the ability to provide for themselves or their family.
So basically, the person wants to die, but doesn’t want to commit suicide directly,
so goes on a murderous rampage until someone kills them.
Even today, this sort of thing can be seen in the news practically every day where someone
is really just attempting “death by cop”, going on a rampage until the police manage
to kill them.
In any event, going back to Dance Mania, as the numbers of frantic dancers swelled, herd
behavior seems to have taken over and a form of mass hysteria resulted.
As the hysteria reached a fever pitch, people were even willing to inflict serious physical
injury upon themselves, even to the point of death from injury or exhaustion, seemingly
unable to stop.
In the extreme, this could potentially cause hallucinations and the like as the people
became sleep deprived, dehydrated, malnourished, and physically exhausted.
Popular "cures" for Dance Mania at the time included:
• Praying to St. John the Baptist.
Some even thought perhaps he was causing the dancing, hence the name "St. John's Dance".
• Performing mass exorcisms on people afflicted by the dance.
• Getting musicians to play.
The musicians would attempt to try to match their music to the general pace of the dance,
then once they did so, would gradually slow the pace down in attempt to get people to
stop.
Even though this was considered a common cure, it more often than not appears to have caused
the number of participants to swell.
Along the same line of reasoning as adding music to the dance to stop it, one wonders
why they didn't just go all out and distribute free alcohol.
That would have cured it for sure!
• On that note, another popular cure was to use musicians in another way.
In this case, they'd actually try to encourage dancing with musicians and they'd even build
dance stages where people could "dance it out".
Some believed the dance was caused by "hot blood" and the only way to cure it was for
people to dance continuously day and night until the affliction passed.
Thus, they provided the facilities and musicians who were instructed to try to keep people
dancing as long as possible.
Bonus Fact: • Another case of inexplicable mass hysteria,
this time unrelated to dancing and much more recent, occurred on January 30, 1962 known
as the Tanganyika laughter epidemic, occurring in Kashasha, Tanzania.
In the beginning, three girls began giggling and laughing apparently uncontrollably, as
young girls often seem to do.
What made this incidence notable was that this laughter spread throughout the school.
After about four months of this occurring off and on with as many as 60% of the students
effected, the school was forced to close down.
It didn't stop there though, spreading to villages such as Nshamba and Bukoba.
In the end, 14 schools had to be shut down and an estimated one thousand people, mostly
school aged children, were affected.