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And before our eyes things really were unfolding as if it were a matter of transforming the tarantula body of the one bitten into an instrument body and then into a rhythmic and melodic body in order to thus re-establish the relationship with some undisclosed psychological suffering. [1]
The tarantella, the "dancing of the spider", was a fifteenth century phenomenon in southern Italy. Frenzied dancing was considered the only remedy for tarantism, a hysterical malady, that infected mainly young women. They could dance out their trauma in public, and since there were no tarantula's in the region, the imagined bite was merely a psychical trigger. Musicians would be employed to find the woman's specific "music", chords to which she alone would respond. In this way she was allowed orgasmic freedom for twenty four hours, she could work out the memory trace, the previously hidden emotional scar, she could rebel, via the tarantella, against male precepts and restrictions while, at the same time, she was observed by men. However, for the duration of the dance, she remained indifferent to their gaze.
Centuries later Herr Freud became fascinated with the "spider woman" when he studied under the neuropathologist, Charcot, at Salpetriere Hospital in Paris. Here the woman's hysterical attack was recorded photographically, her performance was scientifically observed and codified: Charcot noted four separate stages (epileptic, delirious, hallucinatory, mystical) maintaining that the woman performed these movements as if she knew what to do, as if she knew the formula. But Charcot's four stages were the codification of female gestures by a male doctor. The woman herself was indifferent to his "stages", unaware of his scientific gaze, and it was through her indifference that... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline