Dancing mania (also known as dancing plague, choreomania, St. John’s Dance, tarantism and St. Vitus’ Dance) was a phenomenon that may have had biological causes, which occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected adults and children who danced until, allegedly, they collapsed from exhaustion and injuries, and sometimes died.
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…some "paraded around naked"2 and made “obscene gestures”.2 Some even had sexual intercourse.2 Others acted like animals,2 and jumped,6 hopped, and leapt about.6
They hardly stopped,[10] and some danced until they broke their ribs and subsequently died.6 Throughout, dancers screamed, laughed, or cried,[2]: 132 and some sang.11 Bartholomew also notes that observers of dancing mania were sometimes treated violently if they refused to join in.2 Participants demonstrated odd reactions to the color red; in A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany, Midelfort writes that they “could not perceive the color red at all”,6 and Bartholomew reports “it was said that dancers could not stand … the color red, often becoming violent on seeing [it]”.
Bartholomew also notes that dancers “could not stand pointed shoes”, and that dancers enjoyed their feet being hit.2 Throughout, those affected by dancing mania suffered from a variety of ailments, including chest pains, convulsions, hallucinations, hyperventilation,2 epileptic fits,4 and visions.12 In the end, most simply dropped down, overwhelmed with exhaustion.4 Midelfort, however, describes how some ended up in a state of ecstasy.6 Typically, the mania was contagious but it often struck small groups, such as families and individuals.6
