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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Announcing: ‘Dancing with the Derby Dracula’ Funded by the AHRC IAA, we are working with with the Derby Dracula to deliver a series of dance workshops for the public and local dancers to create a performance inspired by Derby’s vampiric history.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The Danse Macabre Crew at the International Gothic Association conference @universityofhull. Fresh from our amazing dance session 'Do the Robot'.

An image of the members of Macabre Danse dressed in gothic outfits.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

He wrote in his biography that he was inspired by a vision of pagan rite which ended in sacrifice. Pic: Joffrey Ballet, 1987. This verion drew on Nicholas Roerich's original costumes. You can find a link to excerpts of the Joffrey Ballet version here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo4s...

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

The girl, the Chosen One, dances to her death in the final Sacrifical Dance section. Stravinsky's masterpiece drove audiences to near riots when it premiered. Pic: Phoenix Dance Theatre’s eight Company Dancers, choreographed by Jeanguy Saintus, drawing on Haitian beliefs, 2019.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Day 30 of #31DaysofDanseMacabre and today's dancing dead girl is the sacrifical maiden from Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rites of Spring' (1913). Pic: Pina Bausch's choreography, 1984. Performance view, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, 2017.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Originally tited The Swan, it was choreographed for Anna Pavlova by Mikhail Fokine. Set to to Camille Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux that follows the last moments of a dying swan.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Day 29 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse and our Dancing Dead Girl takes the form of a swan. Not, as you might expectation, Odette from Swan Lake but the Dying Swan.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

The guests in their Doom Buggies look down on the ghostly birthday party as the spirits dance through the furniture and walls to the sound of the organ, played by another ghost

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

The Waltzing Dead are part of the biggest practical effect in the Haunted Mansion attraction and its counterparts at Disney parks across the world.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Welcome, foolish mortals to day 28 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse where we invite you to watch the Waltzing Dead, also knows as the dancing ghosts from the ballroom in the Haunted Mansion.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

The meta nods to the vampire genre all come together with the father's reveal, and this is one to add to the Halloween watchlists!

Abigail dancing out of a cage in her bloody white tutu

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

The second dancing dead girl featured in the film is up and coming Scream Queen Kathryn Newton, who is bitten and turned, and dances like a marionette whilst under Abigail's thrall, before meeting her grisly final end

Kathryn Newton as Sammy after having been turned into a vampire, dancing in thrall like a marionette whilst covered in blood and grime

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

This is a child vampire that hunts them down one by one inside the hostage house. Abigail is played by Alisha Weir, fresh off playing Matilda, and dances with gruesome delight throughout the movie

Abigail dancing with delight in a bloodied white tutu and small feather headpiece

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Day 27 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse and children can be such monsters. Abigail (2024) is a reimagining of Universal's Dracula's Daughter and sees a group of criminals recruiting to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman. However, said child is no ordinary ballerina...

Alisha Weir dancing mid turn as Abigail wearing a blood splattered white tutu

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Ghost Dances is a one-act dance work in which three skeletal Ghost Dancers await a group of Dead who will re-enact moments from their lives before passing on. The dishevelled appearance of the Dead suggests ordinary people who have been through trauma.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

The Dead are five women and three men who throughout the work experience contrasting forms of death.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Day 26 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse presents the Dancing Dead (Girls) of Christopher Bruce’s 1981 Ghost Dances. It tells stories of love and compassion, as death – in the form of the ‘ghost dancers’ – interrupts the daily lives of a series of ordinary people.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Her dancing is at times sluggish, at others frantic and very Giselle like in the staging and choreography. She does eventually succumb to the effects of the Rose and collapse.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

The score crescendos and the audience applauds. This is the end of Aurora's part for now, we think. But Bourne surprises us and has Aurora revive and continue to dance is a semi-conscious state.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Our attention for today is focused on the section after Aurora's finger is pricked by, not a spindle in this adaptation but the thorn from a rose.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

A semi-dead, semi-dancing girl for Day 25 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse as we visit one (of many) options from Matthew Bourne's reimagined contemporary ballets in the form of Aurora from Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

For Day 24 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse we present to you Lily Frankenstein, our Dancing Dead Girl played by Billie Piper.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

The show depicts this 'descent into madness' using dancers representing the ghostly mothers. In some scenes, the women wear pale clothing but as the show goes on, their movements become chaotic and they wear white, shroud-like dresses, until Semmelweis is surrounded by dancing women in white.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

For Day 23 of #31DaysofMacabreDanse, we return to the theme of dancing dead girls in white with 'Dr Semmelweiz' (2023) starring Mark Rylance, about Dr Ignaz Semmelweis' work to prevent postpartum infection. His work was dismissed, leading to a nervous breakdown, and he died in an asylum.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Ironically, despite stills from this scene ranking high in the image search when you google* the film, the Vampires of the title are a gang of master thieves and not, in fact, actual vampires. *other search engines are available

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Day 22 #31DaysOfMacabreDanse presents the vampire bat ballet sequence from Louis Feuillade's silent film serial Les Vampires (1913-15). In Episode Two - The Ring That Kills ballerina Marfa Koutiloff (Stacia Napierkowska) performs as a vampire bat en pointe but dies on stage.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

For Day 22 of #31DaysofMacbreDanse, we have the Danse Macabre crew on Romancing the Gothic (www.youtube.com/@RomancingTh...). The image is from our screening of Guy Maddin's 'Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary' (see Day 15) for Dracula in Derby conference.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

On a visit to the opera, he sees a dancer who reminds him of his dead wife. Overcome with grief, desire and madness, he wanders the streets of Bruges. His attempts to woo the dancer lead to tragedy when she cannot live up to the memories of his dead wife. Image: Photograph from the original text.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

A belated day 20 of #31DaysofMacabreDanse with the classic novel of death, a young woman and dance: 'Bruges-la-Morte' (1892) by Georges Rodenbach. The narrative follows a widower haunted by his dead wife, and still living amongst her relics. Image: Fernand Khnopff's cover design, 1892.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

The fact that her top reads DEATH shpuld have clued him (and us) in. This is a Dancing Dead Girl after all and she transforms. Her choreo switches up to match her new flashdance-meets-vampire appearance, with some bed-ography reminiscent of Fuseli's Nightmare.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

It's pure 80's costuming and choreography. Isolations, hip thrusts, and floor work. The curtains get in on the action at one point, and the lyrics of the chorus inspire a repeated motif. It's far from the lap dance the audience were anticipating, but boyfriend is clearly happy.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

The couple, in matching Creper battle vests, sneak upstairs and the girl handcuffs her boyfriend to her single bed and puts a Creeper cassette tape on the player. She proceeds to dance for him, silhouetted by her bedroom window.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Their upcoming release, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death is a sequel to their 2023 album Sanguivore. There are Dancing Dead Gilrs galore, but it's the first single from the new album Prey for the Night that caught our eyes at Danse Macabre HQ.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

The ballet she must dance is Giselle, already associated with dancing dead girls. Ballet's association with perfection and repetition is significant: a dead girl caught in limbo. The episode explores characters' desires, obsessions, reminding us that the course of true love never did run smooth.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

For Day 19 of #31DaysofMacabreDanse, our dancing dead girl is the Prima Ballerina (Summer Glau) in 'Waiting in the Wings', Angel (S3: E13). In this episode, a ballerina is cursed to dance the same ballet, nightly, forever. To break the spell, she must dance the wrong steps leading to her death.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

As the camera cuts back downstairs to Hannah and the girl's father watching the ceiling lamp sway, Hannah's deadpan delivery of the line "Sounds like Elvira's raising more than just the dead up there" is exquisite.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Some goth rock melodrama for your #31DaysOfMacabreDanse Day 18 with Creeper. An example of theatrical metal, the band includes worldbuilding and story arcs with their albums, creating personas for the members and expanding the stories in their music videos.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Draculaura and Ellis share the pressures of familial expectation, and Ellis teaches Draculaura to counger a stand-in in the form of a moss golem. The four then form a pas de quatre, linking arms reminiscent of the Dance of the Signets from Swan Lake #31DaysOfMacabreDanse

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Naturally, all of the monsters dance in these movie musicals, but in Monster High 2 Draculaura gives us an undead pas de deux with fellow Vamp (and Witch) Ellis in the mist filled grounds of Monster High after curfew to The Reason I've Got Magic.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Our Dancing Dead Girl for Day 17 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse is Monster High's Draculaura. Daughter of Dracula, our girl is harbouring a secret; she might be a Vampire but she's also a Witch and the two are mortal enemies.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Let me in a your window for Day 16 of #31DaysOfMacabreDanse. The debut single from Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights, released in 1978, is a self penned number sung from the point of view of Cathy's ghost.

Stills from Kate Bush music video for Wuthering Heights, dressed in white in soft lighting and fog on stage

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Pictured are Dracula (Zhang Wei-Qiang) and Lucy (Tara Birtwhistle). The film draws on themes of xenophobia and the repression of female sexuality. Lucy seemingly delights in her transformation and finds freedom in (un)death.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Day 15 of #31DaysofMacabreDanse and it's Guy Maddin's 'Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary' (2002), a film of Royal Winnipeg's Baller adaptation of 'Dracula' (1897). Filmed in the silent film tradition, the addition of colours - golden, green and red - add depth and symbolism.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Named 'Totentanz' in the original German, the Beautiful Dancer seduces men, luring them to their death, under the control of a cruel master. She falls in love with one of them, also a murderer, who must win his freedom through a labyrinth hidden beneath the master's house.

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Day 14 of #31DaysofMacabreDanse, and we turn to a lost a film, 'The Dance of Death' (1919). Written by Fritz Lang, and directed by Otto Ripert, this silent horror film centres on a dangerous dancing woman (Sascha Gura).

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Macabre Danse @macabredanse.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Day 13 of #31DaysofMacabreDanse and it's unlucky for some. In this case, the Treginnis family in 'The Haunted Ballroom', first performed in 1934 with music and libretto by Geoffrey Toye and choreography by Ninette de Valois. Image: Alicia Markova and Robert Helpmann

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