The Dancing Public

The story of mass ecstatic dances, which erupted uncontrollably across Europe at various times in history, has many forms and many theories about their “ignition.”

These frenzied outbreaks of unrelenting dance—filled with spasms, convulsions, and uncontrollable gestures—could spread from one body to another, eventually sweeping up hundreds into a pulsating collective movement that lasted for days or even months. Reappearing from the Middle Ages into the early modern period, these events were explained in countless ways—from possession by evil spirits and saints’ curses to neurological disorders and diagnoses of hysteria. Yet behind the dangerous image of public disorder was the dancing body itself, seeking relief from the stress of epidemics, natural disasters, and poverty—a body in protest.

Mette Ingvartsen, evoking collective moments of past dance mania, explores bodily ecstasy within social gatherings after the pandemic. Her solo, emerging from the isolation of 2020, bursts into an intense mix of unstoppable movements, continuous music, and wild rhythms of words and song. This shapeshifting composition—part dance feast, part spoken poetry concert, part physically exhausting frenzy—raises pressing questions: Can dance seize the collective public body and transform it? What pressures from unexpressed movement do our bodies feel today? Are we ready to be intoxicated by life once again?

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