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Choreomania
Oxford Studies in Dance Theory
K É L I N A G OT M A N
1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by WebCom, Inc., Canada
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
For Karen Ray
In the universality of the Western ratio, there is this division which is the
Orient: the Orient, thought of as the origin, dreamt of as the vertiginous point
from which nostalgia and promises of return are born, the Orient offered to
the colonising reason of the Occident, but indefinitely inaccessible, for it always
remains the limit: the night of the beginning, in which the Occident was formed,
but in which it traced a dividing line, the Orient is for the Occident everything that
it is not, while remaining the place in which its primitive truth must be sought.
What is required is a history of this great divide, all along this Occidental becom-
ing, following it in its continuity and its exchanges, while also allowing it to appear
in its tragic hieratism.
Michel Foucault, History of Madness (1961)
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could
not hear the music.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1892)
Contents
viii • Contents
List of Illustrations
2.1 Dancers of Kölbigk, in a seventeenth- 4.2 ‘Ms. Thibaut’s Cure’ [she is cured on the
century woodcut by Johann Ludwig spot on June 19, 1731, when all her
Gottfried, from Historische Chronica, hydropic limbs are deflated before the
oder Beschreibung der fürnemsten spectators’ very eyes . . . and to her serv-
Geschichten, so sich von Anfang der Welt ant girl’s amazement]. Courtesy the New
biß auff das Jahr Christi 1619 (also known York Academy of Medicine Library. 98
as Gottfried’s History of the World) 4.3 ‘The grands secours’. From Charcot and
(Frankfurt am Main: Merian, 1674), Richer, Les démoniaques dans l’art (1887).
S. 505. 63 Courtesy the New York Academy of
2.2 Dancing couples, accompanied by a musi- Medicine Library. 99
cian, fail to kneel before the Sacrament 6.1 ‘Maenad having a seizure’. From Paul
as it is being carried by, upon which Richer, L’art et la médecine (1903).
some two hundred people fall into the Courtesy the New York Academy of
river and drown. Woodcut now attrib- Medicine Library. 144
uted to Albrecht Dürer. From Hartmann 6.2 ‘Saint Vitus’ dancers driven as pilgrims
Schedel’s Buch der Chroniken [The Book of to the church of Saint-Willibrord, in
Chronicles, or The Nuremberg Chronicle], Epternach [sic], near Luxembourg.
printed by Anton Koberger (1493), folio After a drawing by P. Breughel, in
CCXVII recto. 64 the gallery of the archduc Albert, in
4.1 ‘Ms. Thibaut’s Disease’ [enormous dis- Vienna’. From Charcot and Richer, Les
tension of the abdomen, legs, paralysis, démoniaques dans l’art (1887). Courtesy
etc.]. Courtesy the New York Academy of the New York Academy of Medicine
Medicine Library. 97 Library. 147
• ix
6.3 ‘A Group of St. Vitus’ Dancers. Facsimile of 11.1 ‘Charleston posed by Ted Rogers, Jien
an engraving by Hondius [1642]’. From Saergent and Viola Worden who are
Charcot and Richer, Les démoniaques appearing with great success in vaude-
dans l’art (1887). Courtesy the New York ville’. The photo appears alongside
Academy of Medicine Library. 148 an article by Curtis Mitchell, ‘Why
6.4 Saint Vitus’s Dance. Lithograph from the Dorothy Dances Jazz Steps: Fred
Album comique (1823). Reproduced in Stone, American Comedian, Tells Why
Nouvelle iconographie de la Salpêtrière He Trained His Daughter in Eccentric
(1904). Courtesy the New York Academy Rather Than Classical Dancing’.
of Medicine Library. 151 Originally in Dance Magazine, March
6.5 ‘Crucifixion. From the Iconographie pho- 1926, 28–29. Courtesy the Jerome
tographique de la Salpêtrière’. From Paul Robbins Dance Division, The New York
Regnard, Les maladies épidémiques de Public Library for the Performing
l’esprit (1887). Courtesy the New York Arts, Astor, Lennox and Tilden
Academy of Medicine Library. 153 Foundations. 278
6.6 ‘Stage of the attitudes passionnelles of the 11.2 Postcard of Josephine Baker performing
great hysterical attack: attitude of cru- the Charleston at the Folies-Bergère,
cifixion’. From Charcot and Richer, Les 1926. Photo by Stanislaus Julian
démoniaques dans l’art (1887). Courtesy Walery. 279
the New York Academy of Medicine 11.3 Advertisement for a dance mara-
Library. 154 thon. From Lawrence Mathews,
6.7 ‘Ovarian Compression Belt’. From Paul Photographic Scrapbooks: Dance
Richer, L’hystéro-épilepsie, ou grande Marathons, c. 1930–1939. Courtesy
hystérie (1881). Courtesy the New York the Jerome Robbins Dance Division,
Academy of Medicine Library. 155 The New York Public Library for the
6.8 ‘The Dancing Procession of Echternach’. Performing Arts, Astor, Lennox and
From Nouvelle iconographie de la Tilden Foundations. 291
Salpêtrière (1904). Courtesy the New 11.4 A dance marathon. From
York Academy of Medicine Library. 163 Lawrence Mathews, Photographic
7.1 Portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton as a Scrapbooks: Dance Marathons,
Bacchante, by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le c. 1930–1939, courtesy Jerome
Brun, c. 1790. 185 Robbins Dance Division, The
9.1 Ghost Dance of the Sioux Indians in New York Public Library for the
North America (1891). From Illustrated Performing Arts, Astor, Lennox and
London News, 3 January 1891, 15–16. Tilden Foundations. 292
Courtesy the Library of Congress, C.1 Echternach dancing procession, 14 June
Prints and Photographs Division, 2011. Photo by the author. 312
LC-USZ62-52423. 242 C.2 Echternach dancing procession,
9.2 The Ghost dance by the Ogallala [sic] 14 June 2011. Photo by the
Sioux at Pine Ridge Agency. Drawn author. 313
by Frederic Remington, Pine Ridge, C.3 Echternach dancing procession,
South Dakota (1890). From Harper’s 14 June 2011. Photo by the
Weekly, 6 December 1890, 960–961. author. 313
Courtesy the Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-USZ62-3726. 243
x • List of Illustrations
Series Editor Foreword
1
Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 117.
• xi
A return to historical methodologies and itself as an archaeology. As the question of the
even subjects is an acknowledgement that archive in relation to embodied memory is being
areas between the early modern and the long hotly debated in dance and performance stud-
nineteenth century are essential to the anal- ies, Gotman’s book suggests the emergence of
ysis of contemporaneity. Amidst the archival a new historical turn in contemporary dance
turn trending in dance scholarship today, the scholarship.
particular originality and theoretical cachet
Mark Franko
of Choreomania is its focus on dance history
Series Editor
A NUMBER of significant events have trans- while dealing with nineteenth-century fantasies
pired during the writing of this book over the of medieval and colonial outbreaks of dancing
past decade. Most recently and saliently, the and song, uncovers a whole history of think-
refugee crisis in Europe, resulting from war in ing about the forms—the choreographies—of
Syria and neighbouring countries, displacing unrest. In particular, this book rethinks the
millions, has forced nations to reckon with the modern formation of a nineteenth-century fan-
porosity of their borders and questions of prior- tasy, ‘choreomania’, which emerged across sci-
ity and privilege. Uprisings in the Arab world, as entific disciplines to designate the spontaneous
well as in Greece, London, and New York, have and uncontrolled movements of crowds and the
suggested waves of change and an upsurge of jerky and seemingly inelegant movements of
popular opinion against the corporate classes; bodies subject to fits and starts. In the concate-
we have only just begun to see the effects of nation of these misfirings and misformations of
this spirit of resistance on economic and gov- bodies and body politics, a whole series of preju-
ernment strategies. In universities, the over- dices against spontaneity unfolds, suggesting
whelming dominance of science, technology, widespread anxieties about impulsiveness and
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects irregularity— as well as their grotesque spec-
in structures of funding and reward, over the tacularization—which I argue subtend contem-
increasingly beleaguered and rapidly atrophying porary biopolitical life.
arts and humanities disciplines, has provoked At the same time, this book argues that
much soul-searching among those who are still dance as a discipline cannot be taken separately
tied to the idea that the arts matter more than as from the history of science and of the social sci-
instruments of public impact. All of these issues ences; that, on the contrary, ideas about ‘dance’
find a place in the fissures of this book, which suffuse the modern construction of scientific
• xiii
disciplines. Dance, in the literature this book or a bad thing; it is not more desirable than
describes, serves discursively as the site where stillness, or more to be criticized for epitomiz-
bodies become public, infecting audiences, ing the regimes of stress, hyperproductivity,
including with erratic and spontaneous gestures. overperformance—and precarity—that have led
The ‘dancing disease’, choreomania, stands for contemporary critics, including Peter Sloterdijk
this complex of medicalized, anthropologized and Paul Virilio, to argue that speed (and uproot-
ideas about a disorderly social body that jerks edness) are the characteristic traits of modern
uncontrollably and in doing so unpredictably biopolitical life. Yet this book does wrestle with
affects those around it. The flip side to this story the relationship between movement and free-
is a story of control, the one Michel Foucault dom; in particular, as I have come increasingly to
(1926–1984) has written, according to which the understand in the development of the argument
nineteenth century becomes a time of increasing this book outlines, freedom to move signals a
regimentation. This book, while contributing to real privilege that reverberates across notions of
Foucault’s discursive history—his genealogy— bodiliness, dance, and the discourses surround-
of the nineteenth-century scientific and political ing their putative disorders. Constraints on
institution of madness as a site of sequestration movement—as in the current refugee crisis—
and constraint, simultaneously opens this story signal constraints on political power and agency,
out to new lines of thought around dance and on individuals’ capacity to shift their standpoints
the role that ideas about disorderly dance play in and allegiances, to find more hospitable terrains.
this process of disciplinarization. I hope this his- Being able to move means being able to reaggre-
tory of disciplines—what I call this choreography, gate, to realign. Being able to move in socially
to denote the movements and travels, the trans- unaccepted ways—here, erratically, jaggedly—
lations, of ideas across discursive grounds—will similarly signals a way of bodily being that dis-
help reconfigure the ‘two cultures’ divide that we rupts choreographies that implicitly enable the
appear to be still entrenched in today, in spite smooth and efficient functioning of social and
of increasing efforts towards the institutionali- political life. Choreic bodies that fit, startle, and
zation of interdisciplinarity. My aim, then, with jump interrupt the invisibility of bodily being
this book is to write a history of ideas about in the everyday: the placid march of the metro,
dance, and in doing so to carve out a space of the line at the bus stop. Movement then can be
thinking about the way jaggedly moving bod- understood as the capacity to move: the freedom
ies and crowds have come to signal the best and to be still or to exercise a wider range of motions
worst of modern biopolitics, construed in the and displacements than is normally, normatively
broadest sense as a biopolitics of movement. allowed. In that sense, yes, movement is ‘good’: it
So is movement good? This book argues that makes way for possibility. What we do with that
movement in itself does not constitute a good possibility is an open question.
xiv • Preface
Acknowledgements
THIS BOOK, about disorderly dancing— and with collegiality, conversation, and critique, pub-
the language with which it has been imagined lished bits in progress, and offered injections of
in colonial, medical, ethnographic, and other warmth, thank you especially to Michael Allan,
archives—has emerged across institutions, and Johannes Birringer, Melissa Blanco Borelli, Peter
I have many individuals to thank for travelling Boenish, Amanda Card, Broderick Chow, Nicola
this journey with me. At Columbia University, Conibere, Laura Cull, Thomas F. DeFrantz,
Arnold Aronson, Julie Stone Peters, and Martin Kate Elswit, Rachel Fensham, Patrick ffrench,
Puchner championed what seemed an impossi- Clare Finburgh, Tony Fisher, Avishek Ganguly,
ble project and allowed me the freedom to roam. Yelena Gluzman, Sam Godin, Huw Hallam,
Bruce Robbins and Maura Spiegel received it Alvan Ikoku, Amelia Jones, Michael Jonik, Eve
graciously at the height of summer. Colleagues Katsouraki, Joe Kelleher, Anjuli Raza Kolb,
at King’s College London have offered support Alvin Eng Hui Lim, Dejan Lukić, Jon McKenzie,
and collegiality in various ways: thanks espe- Penny Newell, Clare Parfitt-Brown, Ella Parry-
cially to my department chairs Mark Turner, Jo Davies, VK Preston, Noémie Solomon, Arabella
McDonagh, and Richard Kirkland, as well as to Stanger, Shilarna Stokes, Sarah Whatley, Suzy
Seb Franklin, Paul Gilroy, Brian Hurwitz, Ananya Willson, and Alison Wood. It is often, in times
Jahanara Kabir, Alan Read, Theron Schmidt, of doubt, for our students that we write. I owe
and Lara Shalson. I am particularly grateful to thanks to all those who have asked the hardest
Richard and the School of Arts and Humanities questions and followed their own improbable
at King’s for essential research support in the strands. Among the many mentors who have
final stages. modelled ways of asking and offered vectors of
Among the many colleagues, mentors, stu- thought, special thanks are due to Gil Anidjar,
dents, and friends who have nourished this work Étienne Balibar, Sylvère Lotringer, Chantal
• xv
Pontbriand, Michael Taussig, and, long ago, Ruth Athens; the PoP Moves seedbed on dancing meth-
Harris and Miri Rubin. Unbeknownst to her, odologies; the Royal Central School of Speech
Karen Ray at Marianopolis College in Montreal and Drama ‘Practice ( . . . ) Research’ conference;
set me going on dance manias in the margins the Contemporary Arts Research Seminar and
of an essay I wrote for her on the Black Death, Chichester Festival Theatre Study Day, University
sparking the fantasy of this book. Frederick of Chichester; the Research Seminar on the
Andermann shared thoughts on the history Theory, Practice and History of Performance at
of neurology in early stages, Lesley Sharp on Goldsmiths, University of London; the Brunel
Madagascar. Karl Steel and Daniel Hadas both Theatre Research Seminar Series and Artaud
lent a hand with the stickiest bits of Latin. For Forum, Brunel University; the London Theatre
impeccable help with German, thanks to Anna Seminar; the inaugural Performance Philosophy
Gritsch and to Matia Gotman. Ellen MacCallum Research Seminar on ‘dance(-theatre) and phi-
helped me see that my work is all, in the end, losophy’ and the first Performance Philosophy
steeped in translation. conference, both University of Surrey; various
A visiting fellowship at the Society for the Theatre and Performance Research Association
Humanities at Cornell University coincided with events at Queen Mary, University of London;
the last stages of writing and research; I am Royal Holloway, University of London and King’s
grateful to Timothy Murray and all the fellows College London; the Anglo-American Theatre,
for their warm welcome. An Audrey and William Performance and Philosophy conference at the
H. Helfand fellowship at the New York Academy Sorbonne; the Theatre Studies Seminar at the
of Medicine enabled me to pursue vital research National University of Singapore; the Cornell
into the tarantella; thank you to Arlene Shaner Society for the Humanities; the University of
at the NYAM Library for supporting this work Pennsylvania Graduate Humanities Forum;
from early on. Among the many librarians who the Richardson History of Psychiatry Research
have enabled this research, thanks are also due Seminar at the Institute for the History of
to Eleanor Fitzpatrick at the Philip Richardson Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College and
Library, Royal Academy of Dance; Arlene Yu at New York Presbyterian Hospital; and the first
the Dance Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance International Congress on Epilepsy, Brain and
Division, New York Public Library for the Mind in Prague.
Performing Arts; Mary Frances Morrow, Rodney At Oxford University Press, Norm Hirschy
A. Ross, and Jill Abraham at the National Archives and Lauralee Yeary have been keen and sup-
and Records Administration, Library of Congress; portive allies. Thank you to Richa Jobin for see-
Diane Richardson at the Oskar Diethelm Library, ing this seamlessly through production; and to
Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Cornell Martha Ramsey for copyediting. Mark Franko’s
Weill Medical Center and New York Presbyterian enthusiasm for the work gave me the courage
Hospital; Stephen Novak at the Columbia to keep writing, the certainty of an audience.
University Health Sciences Special Collections I am grateful to him for his trust and his vision.
Library; and Chris Lyons at the Osler Library My anonymous reviewers provided pointed and
for the History of Medicine, McGill University. generous feedback and suggestions for improve-
Many thanks to all staff at the Rare Books and ment without which this work would be incom-
Music Reading Room at the British Library; the parably poorer; thank you. John Doddy has
Theatre and Performance Collections, Victoria offered meticulous research support.
and Albert Museum; the Special Collections Finally, I could not have done this work with-
Reading Room, School of Oriental and African out the support of my family, who have taught
Studies, University of London; the Warburg me to live across languages and national lines.
Institute; the New York Public Library; and the My parents in particular have modelled curios-
Union Theological Seminary in New York. ity and perseverance, shown me science and art.
I have shared portions of this work in prog- Throughout so much of the writing, Steve Potter
ress at various seminars, conferences, and talks remained my closest critic and most trusted ear,
over the years and am grateful to all the col- sharing in this work with the patience of a friend
leagues and students who have extended a hand and the clarity of a true reader. Dinah Gypsy has
and indulged in the gift of conversation, includ- kept me laughing and awake at every conceivable
ing at the Society for Dance History Scholars / hour. Thank you for your dancing and drawing,
Congress on Research in Dance conference in your painting and stories, your play.
xvi • Acknowledgements
Choreomania
Introduction
Choreomania, Another Orientalism
History is the concrete body of becoming; with its moments of intensity, its lapses, its extended
periods of feverish agitation, its fainting spells. . . .
1. ‘Historical epistemology’, a term that came into vogue in the Anglo-American history of sciences in the 1990s in the wake of
historian and philosopher Lorraine Daston’s recuperation of the writings of Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962), Georges Canguilhem
(1904–1995), Foucault, and others on the history and philosophy of ideas, suggests that knowledge can only be understood in
terms of its history. Any inquiry into a way of thinking—what Foucault calls a ‘discursive formation’ (or discourse)—has to take
into account its so-called historical context. But the context does not just frame the idea; the context suffuses, shapes, and is
shaped by the idea—and adjacent ideas—in turn. Ideas and their histories are mutually imbricated fields of analysis. Yves Gingras
offers a useful genealogy of the term ‘historical epistemology’, highlighting the spurious way it has entered the Anglo-American
tradition as novelty. Yves Gingras, ‘Naming without Necessity: On the Genealogy and Uses of the Label “Historical Epistemology,” ’
CIRST—Note de recherche 2010-01 (January 2010), http://www.chss.uqam.ca/Portals/0/docs/articles/2010-01.pdf (last accessed
7 June 2017). For ease of navigation, every effort has been made to provide author dates where possible (except in the case of
authors still living). Where it has not been possible to establish these, author names have simply been left undated.
• 1
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Etsintää ei toimitettaisi, sillä katoaminen voitaisiin helposti selittää.
— Ellen saa kaloja, niin sinä pieksät minua, sanoi vaimo, joka
kuvitteli miehestä vain pahaa.
Kuu paistoi jo, kun Mkiba lykkäsi kanootin vesille. Hän meloi
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Sitten tyttö meloi takaisin samaa tietä kuin oli tultukin, kulkien perä
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*****
Hänen lomansa oli pitkä, sillä hän vaelsi San Paolo de Loandan
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meni lähetyslaivalla Sangar-joelle ja palasi Stanley Pooliin.