A case study · Choreomania at the Mütter Museum, 2025–2026
Scoring the Body
Musical architecture and ritual theatre in immersive nightlife.
How do you score a dancing plague? For two sold-out Halloween nights at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum, I built four-hour DJ journeys on the Dancing Plague of 1518 and the medicine of its era, then layered in lighting that listens to each part of the song and ritual theatre that reaches guests one by one.
This case study shows the blueprints, the thinking and the method. It is free: tell me where to send it.
The project in brief
An immersive museum night, scored
The brief
Choreomania is the Mütter Museum’s Halloween party in Philadelphia, produced with Glimmer Labs and themed on the Dancing Plague of 1518, when crowds in Strasbourg danced for days and could not stop. The night had to feel like a contagion guests could not leave.
The concept
A four-hour DJ journey built as immersive theater: the medicine of the plague’s own era as the map, the four humors and seasons in 2025, the clinical stages of an illness in 2026, with lighting, sound design and ritual moments written for every chapter.
The challenge
Only about 30% of the crowd came for dance music. The rest came for Halloween, the museum and the spectacle. The set had to move all of them without playing a single track I did not love.
The result
Two sold-out editions: 600 guests in 2025 and 650 in 2026, sold out two weeks early. The production partner booked the format back, and it became a repeatable model for museums, planetariums and festivals.
From the museum
Not a dance music person, until that night
The best part of the night.
“I LOVED the DJ. Didn’t really think I was a dance tracks person but here we are. It was absolutely the best part of the night, tipped it over the edge into something out of Guillermo del Toro red death style.”
Inside the case study
Nine sections, two years
The four humors blueprint
The 2025 journey through melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine and choleric, with the mood, lighting, sound design and tempo of every chapter.
The clinical stages arc
The 2026 set, built as the stages of an illness: from the warning signs, through the crisis, to the moment the fever breaks.
Integrity and reach
How to play only music you love to a crowd where most guests did not come for dance music, and still move all of them.
Ritual theatre, one guest at a time
The Shakti avatar, the gift economy of crystals, keys and whispers, and the rules that protect the magic and the guests.
The thesis
A highly specialized DJ set, built around the host’s own story and paired with immersive ritual theatre, turns a party into an experience guests feel they lived through, not just attended.
Read the whole story
Eight pages: the blueprints, the method and what it makes possible for your museum, planetarium or festival.