Keep My Words

It was midday on July 14th, 1518, when Frau Troffea began dancing in the streets of Strasbourg, France.

A crowd gathered to watch as she danced into the night, until finally collapsing to sleep.

When Frau awoke the next day, she began her dance again, and once more, she did not stop.

This behavior continued.  Her feet became a mess of purple bruises and bloody sores, but still she danced.

After six days, 34 people had joined in Frau’s dance.  Three weeks later, there were 400 townspeople dancing.

Authorities, per the advice of local physicians, prescribed “more dancing”.  Musicians were hired, halls cleared and professional dancers commissioned to keep the afflicted on their feet.  By the end of the summer, dozens had died from starvation, exhaustion, heart attacks, and strokes.  Those remaining were herded aboard wagons and taken to a healing shrine.

The dancing epidemic did not subside until September.

Although the cause of this plague is still unknown, it has been suggested that the town experienced stress-induced psychosis. Having suffered severely from famine, and in many cases wiped out and reduced to begging, the region was in an ongoing crisis. The area was riddled with diseases, including smallpox, leprosy, and syphilis.  It is theorized that the stress was so intolerable, a mass psychological illness resulted.

Or perhaps everyone just loved to dance.

A friend of mine has an extra ticket to LCD Soundsystem tomorrow night.  I’m going to go, and I’m going to dance.  Maybe I’ll never stop.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.