DOCK 11 EDEN
Public presentation
DANCING PLAGUE
A Physical Theater Workshop
with choreographers Evgeny Kulagin and Ivan Estegneev
In the summer of 1518, an event took place in Strasbourg that remains one of the most mysterious episodes in European history. A woman stepped into the street and began to dance. Within days, dozens of people joined her, then hundreds. They danced continuously—day and night—until exhaustion. Some collapsed. Some died. Historians would later call this phenomenon the “Dancing Plague”.
What compels people to move against their own will? Was it an illness, a collective trance, an expression of social anxiety, or the body’s attempt to communicate what words cannot express?
Led by choreographers Evgeny Kulagin and Ivan Estegneev, this workshop uses the phenomenon of the Dancing Plague as a starting point for an exploration of the relationship between the body, society, and extreme human states. Rather than reconstructing a historical event, participants investigate it through direct physical experience.
Over three intensive days, the participants will explore movement, rhythm, repetition, endurance, and collective dynamics through the practices of physical theater and improvisation. Particular attention is given to the creation of a performative language emerging at the intersection of dance, theater, and heightened physical presence.
The workshop will end with a public presentation developed during the laboratory.
What kind of dance emerges when words are no longer enough?