Tarantella Background

The Tarantella is a folk dance that originated in Apulia (Pugila in Italian), a region of Southern Italy, where, by tradition and practice, it is believed that the dance cures the poisonous bite of the tarantula spider.

Actors dancers perform more than one role as the main characters emerge out of portrayals of fragments of their actual ancestors and collective ancestral memories.

Tarantella, Tarantula is not a reconstruction of any particular regional type of Tarantella dance or music, but an emersion into the essence of Tarantella as a poetic framework for the show's story. The performance flows through nonlinear dance scenarios and musical sequences, weaving verbal and nonverbal narratives. ORIGINS OF THE PRODUCTION: THE FANO ARTS SCHOOL From 1975 to 1980, Slobodan Dan Paich founded and directed the Fano Arts School, an international summer school in the Apulia region of Italy, the land of Tarantella. To deepen a contemporary practice of performance and visual arts at the Fano Arts school, the school instructors collected natural materials and made ancient methods accessible to students. S. D. Paich has been fascinated by the rich traditions and expressions of Pugliese folklore ever since. Since 2001, Paich has been deeply reconnecting to his earlier experiences in Puglia His research into the multiple strands of Tarantella dance forms and music comprise the basis of this production. Salvatore Rizzo, a local craftsman and community leader who adopted and mentored the Fano Arts school's participants, taught many, many things: how to make baskets, harvest and cook wild chicory, and grow, harvest, and cook other foods. He also told myriad stores about local places, peoples, beliefs, and the significance of certain names, saint's days, and festivals. Salvatore's simple and continuous use of the body as a source of proportion inspired the school as powerfully as the measures of the ancient buildings the participants lived in, the songs they heard, and the traditional dances they witnessed. In this production of Tarantella, Tarantula, the company explores the movement inherent in, and the visual art of, these ancient measuring systems-inspired by the way Salvatore Rizzo would use his body proportions to craft the dimensions of household objects and tools.

The performance is also based on S.D. Paich's lifelong interdisciplinary research into dance, music, folklore, and other ancient and parallel traditions. He has researched historical means of transcending gender roles in traditional societies and has collected and assembled examples of ancient lore which relate to modern needs. This research was also a basis for Paich's major presented paper, Magna Graetia: Tarantella, which he was invited to give in November 2005 at the University of Thrace's international conference on the meaning of traditional festivals held in northeastern Greece.