La Danse Macabre, also called Dance of death, La Danza Macabra, or Totentanz, is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death. La Danse Macabre consists of the personified Death leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave - typically with an emperor, king, pope, monk, youngster, beautiful girl, all in skeleton-state; the best-known Danses Macabres are frescos in French and German churches. They were produced under the impact of the Black Death, that reminded people of how fragile their lives were and how vain the glories of earthly life were. See also memento mori and vanitas.
Danse Macabre is the name of Opus 40 by Camille Saint-Saëns, written in 1874. The piece is a tone poem, depicting a skeleton playing the violin in a graveyard as his deceased companions dance around the graves. The piece makes particular use of the xylophone to imitate the sounds of rattling bones.
It was used recently as the haunting theme tune to the English television series Jonathan Creek.
Danse Macabre is a nonfiction book by Stephen King on horror fiction and United States pop culture. Examining influences on his writing, it focuses on films and novels of the genre from a fan's perspective, discussing archetypes, narrative devices, and "the psychology of terror."
Danse Macabre is an album by The Faint.