Chapter 1, Section 1 of The Dancing Mania
takes a close look at the moment when blood starts to boil.
In 1518, the residents of Strasbourg were stricken with an unexplainable, irresistible, extremely painful urge to dance madly until they collapsed. Hundreds were affected; dozens died; two months and many rival curative attempts later, it was suddenly over.
It was after the invention of the printing press, in the midst of the Protestant Reformation, in the aftermath of plague, famine, and natural disasters, when great societal trauma was about to erupt into a new social order - a time not unlike our own.
Jessie Winograd (concept & direction, co-creator, producer, performer) is a dance and theater artist who has collaborated with numerous NYC choreographers including Barbara Mahler, Pele Bauch, Donna Costello, Rachel Thorne Germond, and Trina Mannino, and with devised theater companies including Vagabond Inventions and Brain Melt Consortium (with which she co-created Camp BoHoGro, about a real-life adult summer camp for rich, powerful men). She has performed her own choreography throughout NYC and in Iceland. As a longtime student of Klein Technique, a bodyworker, and a somatic movement teacher, she integrates her deep understanding of anatomy and movement into her artistic practice. She has a degree in Dance and Creative Writing from Hunter College.
Sydney Maresca (costume & scenery design, co-creator, producer, performer) recently designed the costumes for award-winning play Hand to God (Broadway, London, MCC, EST), The Lighting Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical (Broadway, National Tour), TIN CAT Shoes (Clubbed Thumb), Against the Hillside (Ensemble Studio Theater), The Snow Queen (Blessed Unrest; IT Award: Outstanding Premiere Production of a Play), Real Enemies (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Boy (Keen Co.), When January Feels Like Summer (Ensemble Studio Theater), Year of the Rooster (Ensemble Studio Theater), Blood Play (The Debate Society), Finks (Ensemble Studio Theater), Il Turco in Italia (Juilliard Opera). Nominated for Henry Hewes Design awards for her work on Year of the Rooster at EST and The Debate Society's Buddy Cop 2, Sydney is a winner of the Opera America Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase and the J.S. Seidman Award for Excellence in Design. She has taught Costume Design at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, has an MFA from NYU, a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and is part of ukulele band The Hazzards whose song "Gay Boyfriend" was one of the first viral music videos and debuted at #67 on the UK Singles Chart.
Ira Joan Macner (co-creator, producer, performer) A former anatomy instructor and current body worker for the past 15 years, Ira Joan Macner has explored the connections among kinesthetic movement, posture, emotions, the intellect and culture beginning with her theater training at the University of Utah (BFA 1994), her work as a paraprofessional with autistic young adults, and training in Perceptual Thinking Patterns. Ira is also a Reiki practitioner, a certified EFT practitioner (Emotional Freedom Technique) and a practicing Buddhist, all of which inform her artistic endeavors in order to explore one fundamental question: how does the authentic self emerge and integrate with the conscious mind, despite oppression, suppression, cultural and psychological distortions and within the tempest that is the human experience?
