St. Vitus' Dance for accordion and string quartet (2019) by Tyler Versluis

Druskininkai, Lithuania
June 2019

Alena Budziňáková-Palus, accordion
Diemante Merkeviciute, Brigita Pažerauskaitė, violin
Gabrielė Zaneuskaitė, viola
Ana Čirkova, cello

Saint Vitus' Dance is an archaic term for the infection now known as Syndenham's chorea. The infection, typically accompanied by rheumatic fever, caused jerky, uncontrollable movement in the sufferer, which resembled a bizarre style of dancing. In early modern Europe, sufferers would pray to Saint Vitus, patron saint of dancers, epileptics and actors for release from the unfortunate symptoms. In other cases, the cause of this "dancing mania" was unknown and unexplainable. In medieval Europe, there are records of entire crowds of people becoming "infected" with an uncontrollable desire to dance with no social explanation. Often the dancing would continue for weeks and sufferers would collapse in exhaustion or ecstasy.