Mimetic Monday: September 20, 2021

Sally Rooney's Self-Imprisonment, Evergrande, Dancing in the Streets

The picture above is of a tarantati, the ritual spider dance described in Chapter 4 of Wanting. Several hundred years ago in Italy, people (usually women) began dancing uncontrollably in the streets. They were said to be bitten by a spider, and the ritual dances they had to engage in were meant to rid them of the disease.