I Giullari di Piazza, the southern Italian folk music, theatre, and dance company, presents one of its most exotic and unique productions: "The Dance of the Ancient Spider," based on the orgiastic rituals to cure the bite of the tarantula. Artistic Director Alessandra Belloni has created a new staging of the production that premiered in 1996 at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. The performance begins at dusk in the garden, called the Pulpit Green, lit only by torches. The audience subsequently follows the performers, procession-style, into the Cathedral. The show is written and directed by Alessandra, who portrays the "tarantata;" music is arranged by John La Barbera, Music Director and co-founder of I Giullari; famed world percussionist Glen Velez has been a guest performer, as well as storyteller Muriel Borst of the Spiderwoman Theater Company and the Silver Cloud Native American Company.

The origins of curing the mythical bite of the tarantula with purifying trance dances can be traced back to the rites of Dionysus in ancient Greece, and from there spread to southern Italy, Spain, and the Islamic part of North Africa. I Giullari's authoritative cross-cultural production draws from all these places. Most of those who believed themselves "bitten" were young women who worked in the fields planting or picking tobacco. During the repetitions movements of their work, performed under the hot sun, they sometimes hallucinated. Unrequited love, sexual repression, and poor social conditions contributed to the malady that allowed the women, called "tarantate," to behave wildly and with complete abandon.

True to tradition, the company will re-enact the ritual of the tarantate, costumed in white and holding colorful ribbons. The musicians gather around them like shamans, seeking the melodies and accents on the tambourines that will provide the cure. The large tambourines, played by women in a very fast 6/8 rhythms, guided the trance and had the most shamanistic effect, in concert with the haunting violins. Alessandra has specialized in this unique style of tambourine playing, and gives workshops

in N.Y. and around the world, reviving this lost tradition. The production will include women's percussion and dance group trained by Ms. Belloni.

The second act of "The Dance of the Ancient Spider" will take place inside the Cathedral in the St. James Chapel, and will emulate the healing ritual that takes place annually in the Church of St. Paul in Puglia on June 29th. On this day, the tarantate are healed as they experience a vision of St. Paul (originally this vision was of Dionysus). They dance on the altar and all over the Church, and are brought out of their frenzy when they are graced by St. Paul, with no memory of what happened during the ritual.

As with all productions by I Giullari di Piazza, "The Dance of the Ancient Spider" has been carefully researched throughout southern Italy and Sicily, and is performed in authentic costumes and on instruments that include violin, mandocello, chitarra battente (Renaissance guitar), flute, oud, recorder, piccolo, shawm, & a variety of frame drums and world percussion.