In 1518, the residents of Strasbourg began dancing uncontrollably in the town square. Centuries later, in 2011, teenage girls in upstate New York suddenly developed verbal and physical tics. The 1518 dancing plague and the case of Le Roy, New York, are both examples of the historically contested phenomenon of mass psychogenic Illness, or mass hysteria. 

 

This project utilizes theatre as an interactive laboratory of research and draws four mechanisms essential to mass hysteria: public visibility, social contagion, authority response, and collective stress. This analysis reveals that mass hysteria is not irrational chaos, but a patterned response to societal and institutional instability. This instability is not a historical artifact; it persists in contemporary contexts. By utilizing a theatre space as a research laboratory, this project demonstrates how performance allows for new perspectives on pertinent issues through kinesthetic movement and bodily responses.