I have found that the most common act of violence in performance is the act of mosh dancing. Moshing is usually found but not limited to in metal, punk and hardcore culture. Moshing was adopted by multiple scenes since the 1980s, originally finding its place within the California and Washington, D.C. hardcore punk scenes. During these performances, the artists would encourage members of the audience to form ‘pits’, people would jump into/onto each other in an improvised ‘full-contact’ dance. Music scholar Erik Hannerz writes in the book Performing Punk (2015):
“To mosh […] was articulated as the legitimate way of experiencing the music”. Moshing had therefore become not only a dance to the music, but its highly intense bodily aspect was the legitimate way, both for artist and audience, to participate in creating the concert and the musical experience.”
Moshing is engraved into the cultures of extreme music scenes – I will argue that moshing is a valid way to fully express yourself within a performance, although it’s not without its risks.
Moshing is engraved into the cultures of extreme music scenes – I will argue that moshing is a valid way to fully express yourself within a performance, although it is not without its risks. Edvard Haraldsen Valberg quotes in their Nordic Journal for artistic research.
“Mosh Pit or Death Pit” (sic!) from Abcnews in 2008, Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey is mentioned, where 50 people were injured after a mosh pit “got out of hand”. “There is no way to crowd surf [be carried/pushed out over the audience] or stage dive [jump out from the stage and into the arms of the audience] safely consistently”, said the safety representative at the festival. Later in the article, it is explained that around 10 000 people have been injured during the last decade, and that there were 9 deaths from 1994 to 2006 in mosh-related accidents.”