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Hi Richard,
I'll take a stab at a few of your
questions...
- "What is danse macabre? Why does it exist?
What is it supposed to represent?"
Danse Macabre is based on an 11th century
Catholic Morality Play. Similar to Passion
Plays or Mystery Plays, the actual ritual
consisted of the village monk reading
Scriptures while actors dressed in yellow
linen painted with bones on them escorted
other actors representing various members of
society, i.e., the King, a Bishop, a beggar, a
soldier, a farmer, etc., to the grave. This
was to demonstrate that regardless of who you
were or what your position in life, you were
going to die and must Repent now. This is
summed up in the phrase: "Memento Mori" which
translates to "Remember you shall die."
The present incarnation of Danse Macabre
has adopted a bit of "Carpe Diem" into this
idea, so instead of "You're going to die so
repent now" it has morphed into the philosophy
of "You're going to die so dance with us while
you can."
- "Is it a faire thing (like the
Puritans at the
Southern fare) or is it pulled from history
somehow? How do they get started at faire?"
So, yes, it is pulled from history, but
like all things has changed considerably over
the years. It is found in numerous cultures:
in Germany as Der Totentanz and Latin America
as Dia de los Muertos. As you've seen it at
faire, though, it is a fairism born the early
Pleasure Faires. Grego (see the link posted
earlier) went to Europe looking for examples
of Renaissance percussion instruments and came
across the woodcuts of a person named Holbein.
These were of murals from the walls of the
Cemetery of the Innocents in Paris.
Unfortunately, the Cemetery itself was
destroyed sometime around 1428. Holbien's
woodcuts. This site, www.angelfire.com/tx4/tapho...cabre1.htm
, has a lot of Holbien's art. It's not the
greatest site imaginable, being in French and
English, but is nonetheless interesting. most
of the artwork depicts skeletons dancing and
playing instrument as they escort society to
the grave.
Grego saw some of these dancing skeletons
and thought that would make a great ren faire
act, so he got three or four faire musician
friends to dress up in black and white bones
and play period tunes as they danced through
the streets.
Grego left active participation in faire
years ago to pursue his musical puppetry in
Japan. The act has changed leadership numerous
times since then, and was changed from being
an act to being a guild and is now under the
direction of guild master Donnie.
Through the years, many misconceptions of
Danse Macabre have been made by faire patrons
and management alike. The story goes that a
dancer pointed at or made eye contact with a
pregnant woman that had a miscarriage a few
weeks later. She blamed the Danse Macabre for
putting a curse on her, and complained to the
faire. Macabre was banned from faires for a
few years after that incident and was only
allowed to come back after they agreed to
carry a banner and hand out cards explaining
what they did. The banner read something along
the lines of "If we be dead, or seem to be,
then Death it can not come for me."
This idea of tricking Death is what you
often hear at faire these days as the
explanation for the Danse. Donnie often refers
to it as a form of sympathetic magic to ward
off plague and Death. Another core musician of
the present incarnation, Ted, wrote these
words to the tune of None Such:
We dress like Death when Death is nigh And
thus protect the shire. We hope that Death
will pass us by That is our one desire. We do
not mean to scare all of you Or frighten
little children. Tis only Death we mean to
confuse Tis him we are bewildering.
The basic idea is that as the spectre of
Death flies over the shire, he'll look down
and see all these dancing happy skeletons.
Now, Death, of course, is all about gloom and
despair and does not care much for laughing,
happy folks. Seeing the Dancing Dead below him
will give him one of two ideas... All the
villagers here are already dead so there is
nothing for Him to do or if He does kill more
of them, they'll only enjoy it and that will
not do at all! Either way, he flies on and
wipes out the next village, instead of ours.
- "How does one join danse
macabre? And when one joins what is expected
of them?"
Philosophically speaking, how can one NOT
join Danse Macabre? Eventually we all will
dance the Dance of Death, and we just use
faires to practice. :)
Speaking of faires, though, everyone is
invited to dance with Danse Macabre. As a
guild, they do submit gate lists and the
protocol for that is to get your name in to
the guild manager/wrangler/administrator,
Susan. There is a Yahoo group for the Northern
Danse Macabre, entitled oddly enough,
Northern_Danse_Macabre@yahoogroups.com where
requests for gatelists and dissemination of
other information is done. After establishing
the gate list, the rest runs like any other
guild at faire. (Note: names are not submitted
through the Yahoo group, but directly to
Susan.) A link to join the yahoo group is on
my site, www.TheDanseMacabre.com.
You don't have to be there on the Danse
Macabre's ticket in order to dance along.
Donnie is running the guild as all-inclusive,
non-exclusive and anyone that wants to join in
can... So, a person can be gatelisted there
with Pryanksters or Seadogs or a booth or
anyone, even be a playtron, and still join the
dance.
What is expected depends on what you do...
Musicians make music, dancers dance, banner
carriers carry banners, photographers
photograph... If someone is on the Danse
Macabre gatelist, they would typically be
expected to participate in at least 3 out of
the 4 sets over the weekend, but this is not a
strictly enforced rule and people perform to
the level of their abilities or
availabilities.
A common expectation, however, is
costuming. Danse Macabre tries to wear period
cuts all in black with white bones, as a
general guideline, with the obligatory skull
masks. This again is not a hard and fast rule,
as many people dance in their regular garb or
only have a black veil over their face. C'est
la vie...
A question you didn't ask was, "Where are
they located?" Well, there are quite a few
different Danse Macabre troupes out there,
some more closely related to Grego's original
than others. There are two major groups in
California, for instance, notably Northern and
Southern Bones. These groups are run quite
differently with Northern being all-inclusive
and Southern being a bit more strict about
their membership and requirements for
costuming, auditions and rehearsals.
Hope that gives you a little to go on...
Sorry this isn't any longer of a post, and I
could go on as it is a rather involved
subject, but I have to set Death aside for a
bit as Life beckons...
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