Metal, moves and meanings: When dance studies and heavy metal collide

This article centres on headbanging and other forms of heavy metal ‘dance’ to explore the generative intellectual frictions that arise when dance studies and metal studies ‘collide’. Although a rich area of popular dance studies now exists, dance scholars have neglected the array of embodied responses to heavy metal music; and within metal studies, despite fleeting reference to moshing and headbanging, the field has not yet produced a book-length study devoted to the dance practices of metal fans. In response, this article first examines the dance–music relationship in heavy metal and then considers methodological approaches to studying dance as intrinsic to metal culture. It takes the characterization of metal dance and music as an ‘extreme’, and focuses on four areas that productively explore metal as a form of embodied excess: heavy emotions and sanctioned violence; extreme identities and identifications; intense community cohesion and friction; and a radical dancing politics.