What is going on in this very odd picture?

Looks like an 1890s university Dance to Mathematics.

@zenvelo is that a real thing?

@DigitalBlue I have no idea. But 19th century American college kids use to do stuff like that all the time. Where did you discover the picture?

It looks authentic and it looks like a “tableau vivante” to me. Tableaux vivantes were a 19th century form of charades in which participants would stage a static vignette and players would guess what they were representing. I agree that the theme seems to be mathematics although often in tableaux vivantes the themes were from classical mythology.

It’s part of a collection of, “Unexplainable Photographs.” I saved the image and dragged into the Google Images for my answer.

It does look authentic judging by the dresses and overall appearance.

The age-old dancing ritual to mathematics.

TinEye gave a list of 19 matches on the Web. If you’re not behind a firewall, maybe you can check out some of them.

@CWOTUS I just did but none of the links I looked at gave any attribution or explanation.

@_Whitetigress yes, that’s where I found it. It was a collection of 50 bizarre black and white photos. It just caught my eye more than the others, it’s pretty interesting, I think.

Hey, I need those guys to be living scarecrows, people would pay good money to have that group dancing around their vineyards scaring away the birds. lol

Here you go. Now, don’t post another photo with a question like this again. ~ It drove me crazy.

“This photograph is in the archives of the drama department at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The women are performing a play entitled “Math Nightmares” c. 1890.”

@bkcunningham Way to go!

I remain skeptical due to the lack of source link on the site. Muahaha

@bkcunningham thank you!! :)

Actually, I agree, @_Whitetigress. I’m going to try to find another source and verify the Math Nightmares play and Vassar College when I get a chance. I have a gut feeling it is for real just because of some of the other things I’ve read about Vassar’s drama department around that time frame.

I want to see this play!

I found this image from another site. The first image is the one you posted, @DigitalBlue. But note on the side of the image I provided. The words, “Poughkeepsie, N.Y.”

That was actually the first mosh pit in history. As you can see the audience appears to be of some sort of “goth” persuasion. As there wasn’t enough people it seems to have gone terribly wrong. Have you ever been passed through a crowd only to have someones afro comb poke you in the eye? Clearly, it appears they have suffered in such away than passed out. Rock on.

Math Sorority dance????