Dancing with/the Monster

This chapter positions dance as a critical site of monstrous transformation within the horror genre. It draws on three works produced in the 2010s: the films Black Swan (2010), Suspiria (2018), and a live performance titled Horror (2014) produced by the Netherlands-based Jakop Ahlbom company. The article follows the female protagonists in each work as they confront the traumas of their past, navigate their sexual awakening, and claim their agency in the process of transforming into or confronting distinct monsters: a wereswan, a witch, a ghost, and a monstrous “final girl.” Foregrounding corporeality and embodied practice as central to the process of monstrous transformation, the chapter draws on dance studies, horror studies, monster theory, and feminist film theory to propose monstrosity as a framework for healing. Each of the case studies included disrupts conventional coming-of-age narratives and challenges patriarchal norms by casting excess, sensuality, and corporeal rupture as sources of power, hope, and transformation. Yet, even so, these examples reveal how female agency remains tethered to abjection, granted only through transgression, rupture, and excess.