“In the year 1518 AD … there occurred among men a remarkable and terrible disease called St Vitus' dance, in which men in their madness began to dance day and night until finally they fell down unconscious and succumbed to death.”
We, the Monsters is a group of dolls loosely inspired by the repeated occurrences of unexplained, spontaneous dancing through history.
These dolls have been such a treat to exorcise out of my head. Last year I became a little obsessed with Italian Taranta music (apologies to my family who had to listen vicariously) which led to me trying to figure out how to make dolls that move~ how to construct boxes with gears and me spinning them endlessly, and thinking about how musicians would play to help them, which led to a conversation at the dinner table about the Dancing Plague of 1518, which led to lots more reading, which led to me thinking about the afflicted, and how they were brought to the shrine of St Vitus, and how no one knew what was going on and how some of the dancers died... Why do these folks (usually mostly women) spontaneously start dancing and often find themselves unable to stop? Why does it spread? Social contagion? Demonic possession was often believed to the cause, and with this collection of dolls and I am playing with that concept. And all of these twisty-twiney thoughts led to more and more dolls.
Here is Frau Ardith, she is my dancer for this story. She is actually a series of three different dolls, illustrating the transformation from woman to demon. I taught myself some basic automata skills, so Frau Ardith spins when you turn the crank.
In the early stages of the contagion, it was thought that the dancers could be helped if music was played to accompany their dance. So I’ve made some musicians to help them on their way. These are all fairly large marionette-style hanging dolls. Their instruments are made of wood and/or small mammal bones.
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I’ve also carved some wooden demons, which probably are not helping the poor Frau. At all.
… and some little demonic finger puppets. (Poor Frau doesn’t stand a chance)
Available
All of these pieces will be in my etsy shop tomorrow at 12 pm EST.
You can see some of the dolls spinning and playing music in this little film we made.
This will be my last shop update until Fall or Winter. I am now working on some dolls which I will be bringing to the Morbid Anatomy Flea Market, Brooklyn, in September. More about that later.
xo jana
Here are some links if you’d like to read more about either of my obsessions
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Taranta a sampling of a more modern interpretation of this beautiful music, by. Ludovico Einaudi, using older imagery.
This is a deep dive into Italian Taranta music from my friend, Byrne Power.
Dancing Plague of 1518 A brief article about the fascinating events.
The book, The Dancing Plague by John Waller that dives into the history.