Morning Lesson with Rosa Voto

Culture: Encountering Galatina's History

Lunch Break

Processing Circle with Rosa Voto

Workshop: Anna Cinzia Villani

Anna Cinzia Villani is a world-renowned musician, composer, and interpreter of traditional songs and music from Salento.

With her captivating melodies, she has the ability to transport listeners to different times and places, where lively customs and historical tales come to life.

In workshop, Anna Cinzia will lead participants on a journey through the traditional songs of Salento, exploring their main characteristics. She will also teach a beautiful polyphonic song, diving into its social context and the specific vocal techniques that bring it to life.

Morning Lesson with Rosa Voto

Culture: Il Tarantismo - The Healing Ritual with Massimiliano Morabito

Massimiliano Morabito is an ethnomusicologist of Southern Italian traditions, whose work has been source material for major projects in the pizzica revival including for the renowned group Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, with which he has performed worldwide since 2008. He will share with us important accounts of tarantismo.

Music therapy, dance therapy, color therapy, and aromatherapy, considered today as very modern remedies for our ailments, actually have very ancient roots. In Puglia, they can be found at the basis of the unique phenomenon of tarantism where music, colors, and scents, within a welcoming and participatory community, helped the distressed to free themselves from their inner malaise.

While it is true that today the phenomenon of tarantism and the symbolic spider have disappeared, it is also true that such malaises are still present in modern society, albeit in different forms. This is why he is deeply convinced that the healing power of music and dance, but above all of the community that supports us and makes us feel not alone, is still relevant, because 

"ci balli sulu nu te puei curare" 

(if you dance alone, you can’t heal yourself). 

In workshop, we will analyse some of the main interpretations and research of the phenomenon: from Kircher to Serao, from De Martino to Rouget and Lapassade. Rare and unpublished videos will be screened, some of which are the result of Morabito's field research. He will share how some of the testimonies written in past centuries are still present in the "living archives," the people he has directly interviewed and documented, and how popolare oral tradition can still reveal ancient knowledge.

Lunch Break

Processing Circle with Rosa Voto

Evening Lesson with Rosa Voto 

Morning Community Lesson with Rosa Voto 

Lunch Break

Processing Circle with Rosa Voto

Workshop: Giacomo Casciaro

In this session, Giacomo will guide participants through the captivating techniques of the Salento tamburello, teaching the fundamentals of how to approach this unique instrument. 

The tamburello, the heart of the Pizzica, is a mesmerizing instrument steeped in history, with deep roots in the musical traditions of Southern Italy. Through its infectious rhythm, it marks the beat of both social dance and rituals, offering an immersive experience into a world of rich cultural heritage.

Community Gathering

Morning Lesson with Rosa Voto 

Culture: Tarantismo at Museo Civico Pietro Cavoti 

Lunch Break

Workshop: Flavia Sabato & Federica Coladomenico

“Cu lu Stiddhracchiu”

with the participation of Chiara Greco

We are going to tell you the story of a time that once was, a time that is still part of our lived experience. A time we glimpsed through the eyes of our grandparents and parents.

 These songs, like history books, will help us imagine a daily life marked by the monotony of work, where days began with the rising sun and ended with the appearance of the first star—lu stiddhracchiu, as it was called. 

We are going to recount what it was like to experience the separation between those who left and those who stayed behind. Between those who left and, at times, never came back.

Morning Lesson with Rosa Voto 

Culture: "Pizzicata" Screening

Lunch Break

Evening Free/Rest

Morning Free/Rest (Late Start) 

Late Morning Lesson with Rosa Voto 

Lunch Break

Workshop: Maristella Martella

Taranta Atelier

on the symbolic, choreographic, and ritual aspects of Tarantismo and Pizzica Salentina

"The starting point of my research is the ritual origin of the Italian tarantella, trance and tarantism.

Over time I have come to realize that it is not enough to bring on stage the technical virtuosity of dances with popolare origins, but it is necessary to investigate first the ritual expression of these ancient dances.

The body is the means by which one creates, it is the mirror of one's own experience but also an expression of what culture, collective memory, social sphere imprint in the ways of movement, postural attitudes and gestures.

Dance is the form of organization of non-verbal language, through which symbolic contents are passed. 

In many societies, it is considered the highest form of art. 

Through dance we have the opportunity to reconnect with our natural movements linked to the cycle of life.

Popolare dance is an infinite reservoir of experiences, gestures and movements.

It is a dance open to everyone, to men and women, to expert dancers and beginners, to the elderly and children.

There are many reasons that push enthusiasts to approach these dances, almost always they are personal. The search for one's roots, the need to free oneself from metropolitan stress, to find a simple and spontaneous dance, which is born in a land not so far away, are some of the motivations that fill the courses and workshops especially in the cities, where, after all, the movement of re-proposing popolare music and dance was born.

To dance I need to investigate the mystery of Tarantismo and trance, to tell it through our choral and personal dances. Take a journey to the center of the earth, to the center of our soul. 

We continually make a clean slate, we reread the sources, from a different perspective, with a different mentality, in the light of different contributions, and therefore, we cannot help but see.

Contemporary choreographic and theatrical language offers different possibilities for reading and interpreting traditional codes and their transformations. 

During the theatrical dance workshop, Taranta Atelier, we study the steps of different Tarantella styles, we choreographically create dance sequences and together we build a story, whose theme is ‘Tarantismo today.’

Morning Lesson with Rosa Voto 

Lunch Break

Wrap Up Processing Circle With Rosa Voto

Workshop: Flavia Sabato

This project was born from a personality deeply rooted in the Salentino musical tradition, who lives this culture as an expressive and outlet need. Music saves, uplifts, heals. 

Taking part in the workshop will be a journey into a past time, where the movements and symbolisms of the elderly return to a present that no longer knows them. 

The drum remains the link between dance and song, an instrument of recall to an ancestral form of oneself.  Song as a history book handed down for decades.

A journey through movements, therefore dance and songs... all seasoned with stories, experiences, encounters that this passion has allowed me to live.

I would like to leave participants with a clear image of how many facets this music has. Deflating the term “taranta,” and bringing back to a specific use of the terminology, between pizzica and tarantism.

Closing