Choreomania

Since 2019, students in the Bachelor Program at P.A.R.T.S. have graduated with a piece created in collaboration with a guest artist. For Generation XIV, Mette Ingvartsen — who studied at P.A.R.T.S. twenty years ago — embraced the challenge of working with all 40 students on the condition that the process would unfold over the full three years of their studies.

In Choreomania they explore the medieval marvel of dancing epidemics that swept across this part of Europe alongside waves of plague, floods, and famine. These “choreomanias” show a striking response from the most vulnerable or from those most afflicted by crisis—dancing with boisterousness and passion, where joy and despair create a peculiar mix of heightened emotion. The cause of massive outbursts of dancing remains unknown to this day:  were they a symptom of deadly disease, poison or demoniac possession? A cure or an antidote to keep the threat at bay?

In revisiting these medieval dancing manias, Mette and the dancers from P.A.R.T.S. explore their relevance in our present moment in 2025, shaped by crises and protest. How do you open your body to social contact and contagion? How do affects move through our bodies in waves of imitation and synchronization? What politics emerge in learning to navigate and transform feelings of joy and pain, anxiety and enthusiasm? 

Together with the P.A.R.T.S. cohort of remarkable young dancers, Mette embarked on an inquiry into swarmlike patterns of collectivity and the power of affects to move a crowd like an unstoppable fire.

Premiere: June 4th 2025, P.A.R.T.S, Charleroi danse & Kaaitheater, Brussels (BE)