#dancing mania

In his research into social phenomena, author Robert Bartholomew notes that contemporary sources record that participants often did not reside where the dancing took place. Such people would travel from place to place, and others would join them along the way. With them they brought customs and behaviour that were strange to the local people. Bartholomew describes how dancers wore "strange, colorful attire" and "held wooden sticks".

Robert Marks, in his study of hypnotism, notes that some decorated their hair with garlands. However, not all outbreaks involved foreigners, and not all were particularly calm. Bartholomew notes that some "paraded around naked" and made "obscene gestures". Some even had sexual intercourse. Others acted like animals, and jumped, hopped and leaped about.

They hardly stopped, and some danced until they broke their ribs and subsequently died. Throughout, dancers screamed, laughed, or cried, and some sang. Bartholomew also notes that observers of dancing mania were sometimes treated violently if they refused to join in. Participants demonstrated odd reactions to the color red; in A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany, Midelfort notes they "could not perceive the color red at all", and Bartholomew reports "it was said that dancers could not stand... the color red, often becoming violent on seeing [it]".

De todas las rarezas que nos ha dejado la historia, pocas son tan desconcertantes como la epidemia de baile de 1518. Imagina una plaza llena de personas que, de repente, comienzan a bailar sin descanso, día y noche, hasta caer exhaustas. No hablamos de una fiesta, sino de un fenómeno real que tuvo lugar en Estrasburgo (entonces parte del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico). Y lo más inquietante:…

On this day in 1374, the first major incident of the dancing epidemic (dancing mania) occurred in Aachen, Germany, which quickly spread across Europe in the next several years.

This contagious 'disease' makes people dance for several hours to days until they die of exhaustion or thirst.

According to reports, when a village is 'infected,' the people 'exposed' begin dancing uncontrollably and are quickly joined by others.

They barely stopped to eat or sleep for days or even weeks. Despite their constant movement, it was evident they didn’t want to be dancing.

Witnesses noted their faces were twisted in agony, their bodies visibly fatigued, and they trembled and convulsed as they kept dancing.

Over the following centuries, outbreaks recurred across Europe, including the dramatic 1518 Strasbourg episode, where a woman named Troffea danced wildly and was soon joined by hundreds.

There were instances when dancing was once banned publicly due to this strange phenomenon.

Modern scholars remain divided on what truly triggered the dancing mania. Some theories point to ergot poisoning from contaminated rye, which can cause LSD-like hallucinations.

Yet this explanation falls short, as not all affected regions cultivated rye, and ergot poisoning typically restricts movement by reducing blood flow.

The most widely accepted theory today is mass hysteria, or mass psychogenic illness, likely fueled by extreme stress and deep-rooted superstitions.