Why did people start dancing during the dancing plague?

Question

In 1518 there was a dancing plague, which was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg Alsace, in the Holy Roman Empire from July 1518 to September 1518 in which around 50 to 400 people took to dancing for weeks.

Why did these people actually start dancing during the plague?

Answer 1

The reason why people started dancing during the dancing plague in 1518 is due to a result of extreme stress, mass or mass psychogenic illness and strong cultural beliefs in curses or divine punishment, which lead to a collective psychological breakdown, in which anxiety manifested as uncontrollable physical movement, which sometimes was also triggered by witnessing other people dance.

The severe conditions of famine, disease as well as societal upheaval in Strasbourg at the time also intensified the distress, which caused people to dance it out during the dancing plague, which worked as a physical release of pent up fear and trauma.