Day: January 22, 2021

Everybody-Dramaturgy Packet-Danse Macabre

Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
directed by KT Turner
dramaturgy by Ariana Burns

(Section of frontispiece from edition of Everyman published by John Skot c. 1530.)

Danse Macabre or Dance of Death is a medieval allegory about one’s own mortality that came about during a time when death was very much present. The allegory has been presented through a myriad of media including sculptures, murals, wood cuts, paintings, music and presentations (Hollar; Cohen, p 37). Murals were displayed on church walls and charnel houses where corporeal remains were stored and Gertsman wrote of a Parisian cemetery with a large mural surrounding its inner courtyard (p 1). Danse Macabres typically showed people in long processions with corpses in varying stages of decay (Hollar Collection).

Michael Wolgemut, Danse Macabre (1493)

The Danse Macabre probably claimed antecedents in pagan traditions. The practice of dancing in burial grounds did not stop after Christianity had spread into Europe (Cohen, p 37). Medieval cemeteries were not relegated to solely mourning and reflection. Gertsman found them to alive with a variety of activities:

…the medieval cemetery, not necessarily a mournful place, was a site of public picnics, promenades and celebrations—and therefore always busy and often given to worldly affairs. –Elina Gertsman, p 1.

As the church absorbed the graveyard dance, it transformed it into a moral pageantry (Cohen, p 37.) It was the fusion of these differing beliefs that would give rise to the Danse Macabre. Gertsman wrote that the Macabre imagery melded the ideas of death as communal and individual. Each person faced it on their own, in their families, and with the presence of mass burials at cemeteries. None could escape it. “The Nobleman and the Beggar of the danse macabre are both mortal in equal measure, and their indistinguishable remains will co-mingle at a charnel house….” (Gertsman, p31).

Holbien, The Noble Woman

The most popular woodcuts of the Danse Macabre were created by Hans Holbien in about 1525 (Public Domain). His work has seen successive reprints over time.

Interestingly enough, when artists decided how to depict Death visually the most common representation was his own handiwork. Jean de Vauzèle, the Prior of Montrosier remarked on this in his preface to Holbien’s book:

"And yet we cannot discover any one thing more near the likeness of Death than the dead themselves, whence come these simulated effigies and images of Death's affairs, which imprint the memory of Death with more force than all the rhetorical descriptions of the orators ever could." (Wikipedia).

Death is often illustrated dynamically and full of more life than any of the other characters. As if being freed from the mortal coil, has given it more energy. Cohen wrote that he found the pain still within Death’s appearance:

“…the artists of the Dance of Death, by levity, satire and humour, render him a ‘jolly fellow’, a trusted friend. Nevertheless, anguish in the face of Death breaks when, as in our time, massacres and monstrous weapons of universal devastation are all too familiar, death as a dancer can no longer have any ‘reality’, even in fantasy.” (Cohen, p 38).

Along with the duality of Death being a communal and individual experience, the Danse Macabre brings it close and keeps it apart making it both friend and stranger to the people of the Middle Ages.

Wenceslaus Hollar, Procession of the Dance of Death (Unknown date, author lived 1607-1677)
Dance of Death attributed to Johann Jakob Haid, 1700-1750, from the @britishmuseum collection.

Cohen, John. “Death and the Danse Macabre.” History Today, vol. 32, no. 8, Aug. 1982, p. 35. EBSCOhost. Last accessed: Jan 21, 2021.

Gertsman, Elina. “Visual Space and the Practice of Viewing: The Dance of Death at Meslay-Le-Grenet.” Religion & the Arts, vol. 9, no. 1/2, Mar. 2005, pp. 1–37. EBSCOhost,

Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death (1523–5). The Public Domain Review. publicdomainreview.org/collection/hans-holbeins-dance-of-death-1523-5. Last Accessed: Jan 22, 2021.

University of Toronto’s Library Wenceslaus Hollar Collection. hollar.library.utoronto.ca/dancedeath.

https://www.uidaho.edu/class/theatre/productions-and-events/everybody

Everybody-Dramaturgy Packet-Notes

Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
directed by KT Turner
dramaturgy by Ariana Burns

(Section of frontispiece from edition of Everyman published by John Skot c. 1530.)

Last night’s rehearsal included the scenes with Friendship and Stuff. Friendship in Everybody is not the ideal looked for in the Middle Ages: one that is a true friendship, enduring and tested by adversity. At the end of the scene, Friendship has nothing of substance to offer Everybody and leaves them with a statue.

I’ve been thinking about the tawdry little trophy most of the night. It was on par with a golden idol. And probably the best summation of their relationship. Which reminded me of Moses coming down the mountain with the Ten Commandments only to discover people had gotten bored, melted down the gold for a golden calf, and were throwing a party. Rather than waiting for something of substance, they had gone for gratification.

junk lady from Labyrinth.

The departure of Friendship leads to the arrival of Stuff, a larger scale version of the trophy Friendship had just awarded Everybody.

My mental picture—despite BJJ’s description that Stuff is a trophy—is the junk lady from Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. The junk lady rolls into that film intent on distracting the heroine from her mission with all her worldly goods. This is one reason Stuff gives for not accompanying Everybody on their journey.

The image of us being burdened with unnecessary crap seems easier to recognize than that we might have social connections that are just as hollow. There are TV programs dedicated to people who gather too much and messaging would have us believe that we are a nation of hoarders. Comedy routines have been written on the subject as in this example from George Carlin’s 1981 A Place For My Stuff:

That's all your house is- a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff! Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore.... --George Carlin

Our conversation shifted to cutting loose of worldly goods. There was talk of minimalism and how impossible it would be to achieve that for some. I was reminded of Swedish death cleaning, an on-going process of decluttering and organizing but still hanging onto sentimental items. There are quite a few web pages on the topic as it is all the rage nowadays. This was the one I stopped at to refresh my memory. https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/how-to-do-swedish-death-cleaning

Carlin, George. A Place for All My Stuff. https://genius.com/George-carlin-a-place-for-my-stuff-lyrics Last Accessed: Jan 21, 2021.

Keenan, Bretton. “A Beginner’s Guide to Swedish Death Cleaning.” Dumpsters.com. Sept 11, 2019. dumpsters.com/blog/how-to-do-swedish-death-cleaning. Last accessed: Jan 21, 2021.