THEATRE
FOR THE NEW CITY PRESENTS
Alessandra Belloni and
I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA
SPIDER DANCE THE MYSTICAL POWER OF THE TARANTELLA
A trance dance production
CELEBRATE
THE WILD SUMMER SOLSTICE RITUALS IN
HONOR OF DYONISUS WITH THE DANCE OF THE TARANTULA,
JULY 6,7,8 at 8:pm
tickets $ 15
Theater
for the New City 155 1rst Avenue near 10th Street
PREMIERED
ON JUNE 29TH THE TRADITIONAL FEAST OF THE TARANTATI,
AND THE NIGHT OF THE TARANTULA….
AT
ST SYNOD HALL AT ST JOHN THE DIVINE.
FOLLOWED BY A D.J. DANCE PARTY, WITH WINE IN
HONOR OF BACCUS.
Written
and directed by Alessandra Belloni with Arden
H. Mason
Music by John La Barbera in collaboration
with Joe Deninzon on electric violin
Featuring
aerial dancers, acrobats and stilt dancers
The "Spider
Dance" or
Tarantella is a wild erotic trance dance ritual
from Southern Italy which has been used to
cure the mythical bite of the tarantula. This
form of ecstatic dance originated in ancient
Greece as a rite of devotion to the god Dionysus
(god of ecstasy and wine). The women involved
in these rites were called Baccanti, and later
TARANTATE, and they danced the PIZZICA TARANTATA
(which means, "the bite of the spider tarantula",
also called "the bite of love"). It is
this bite of love that has driven people
over the centuries, especially women, to dance
in a wild frenzy in order to free themselves
of repressed sexual desires.
The new "Spider Dance" production and CD infuses
the ancient melodies and instrumentation
of the authentic tarantella with modern electronic
dance beats. The live production will also
feature new choreography that blends together
modern dance and ancient healing trance dances,
powerful ritual drumming and chants in honor
of the Black Madonna, erotic and sensual love
songs, women work chants.
The show is a cross cultural musical journey
telling the story of the Tarantella, from ancient
Greece through Southern Italy in the Middle Ages,
Renaissance to the modern times. It will explore
the social and political connection between today's
times and the Middle Ages during the Crusades,
when this form of euphoric dance exploded as
collective healing trance ritual. By
spinning and stomping their feet to the fast
12/8 beat, the participants symbolically expelled
the "poison" from the mythical bite of the tarantula
from their bodies. Through this musical
exorcism, they were able to release themselves
from the prevailing fears of the day: death
by contagious disease and the coming end of the
world. Today, more the ever, everyone,
men and women, can identify with the feeling
of being trapped in the spider web of society
and the need to cut free from the web.
The traditional instrumentation
includes: voice, tambourines, acoustic guitar,
cithara battente (folk Renaissance guitar from
Southern Italy), violin, , flute, mandolin, castanets,
The
new concert will also feature drum set,
electric violin, guitar and bass, as well
as electronic sampled tracks.
The
complete music ensemble includes :
Alessandra Belloni : lead vocals, southern
Italian percussion, ritual Dance
Joe Deninzon on electric violin and
acoustic
John La Barbera , music director/ composer
classical guitar, chitarra battente, mandolin
Vincent Sciala: drumset, percussion
Anand Gaan Computer samples design and
sound engineer
Choreography
Alessandra Belloni, and
Arden MAson
Stilt Dancer Mark Mindek
Dancers:
Nicola Jervasi
Francesca SIlvano
Alessandra Belloni
Jennifer Neil
Nola Bowen
Suzie Meyers
Jennifer Bowen
The
dance company includes 8 dynamic and
beautiful dancers and acrobats, sensual young
women and men, of different cultural backgrounds,
who will enact the story of the tarantella and
the tarantati, using elements of the folk dances
and the trance rituals. Laying on their
backs and jumping like spiders, spinning, stomping,
their sensuality and eroticism will recreate
the wild ecstatic rites and bring the audience
to a fever pitch during the dance known as Pizzica
Tarantata.
The spirit of this new show is to involve audiences
of all ages, especially young people, in a collective
ritual trance dance of liberation. On a
large scale production the show will make a huge
contribution to demonstrate the healing power
of music and dance, and has the potential
to become a cultural phenomenon on the scale
of RIVERDANCE.
The previous show and CD, entitled "Tarantata
- Dance of the Ancient Spider", premiered
at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, NY, in
1996 as recipient of the Community Arts Project
Award and was sold out (1,200 seats). In the
year 2001 we also presented it at Symphony
Space in NY selling out, 950 seats. We presented
it also in many other venues and always had
a great audience and critical acclaim.
The CD
was also nominated the best Italian
CD of the year by Jon Pareles on the NY Times
and Dan Hackman of the Los Angeles Times and
was sent to the Grammy awards for World Music.
ABOUT THE CAST:
Alessandra
Belloni is a Remo artist with her line of signature series tambourines. A
virtuoso of this instrument, internationally
known, she is reviving an ancient women tradition. Women
priestesses honoring the Goddess of the Earth
and the Moon, in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome
mainly played the tambourines and frame drums.
Today they are still used in Southern Italy,
and Alessandra is the only woman who has mastered
this instrument combing it with singing and dancing
and has b een voted on of the best percussionists
in the world by DRUM Magazine and other publications.
She
has collaborated with many great and famous
drummers such as Rick Allen (Def Leppard), Gordon
Gottlieb, (NY Philharmonic, Julliard, Steely
Dan), Jamie Haddad, (Paul Winter, Paul Simon),
Kenny Aranoff, Anthony Miranda , Brazilian percussionist,
Mauro Refosco from David Byrne's band, and many
others. Alessandra is currently working to record
this concert. Both the live concert and CD recording
will include a handful of talented drummers with
whom she has collaborated over the years.
John
La Barbera, composer and music director,
has arranged and composed music for I GIULLARI
DI PIAZZA for 25 years, and the show will feature his
elaborate arrangements of Southern Italian Folk
Music and contemporary sounds. He has also composed
music fro several films and documentaries, such
as Sacco and Vanzetti and CHILDREN OF FATE, and
the SOULS of Naples with John Torturro.
The
new concert also features JOE DENINZON
ON ELECTRIC VIOLIN (knows as the Jimmy Hendrix
of the Violin) drumset, played by well
known drummer also with REMO, Sergio
Bellotti, the computer sample tracks
are recorded by Anand Gan from Flytrap Productions.
ABOUT THE SHOW:
THE TARANTELLA OR SPIDERDANCE - is an
ancient wild and erotic trance dance from Southern
Italy, used to cure the mythical bite of the
tarantula. It was mainly danced by women in a
state of ecstasy who were "bitten", (pizzicate)
the bite also called the bite of love.
The concert will tell the history of the DANCE
OF THE TARANTULA, as healing trance dance for
women mainly, form the ancient Greek rites on
the Baccantes , as the company will reenact the
myths and legends through ritual dances , modern
dance, drumming and singing.
This dance actually originated in ancient Greece
as an ecstatic trance dance in honor of the God
Dyonisus. God of ecstasy and wine. The myth of
the spider also comes from ancient Greece and
our story begins there, The myth of Aracne, Played
by a wonderul arial dancer, Carol Knopf.
Alessandra Belloni plays the Goddess Athena,
singing, dancing, using a mask and her powerful
tambouirne playing.
The
company will also reenact the ritual trance
dance of the tarantella known as Pizzica Tarantata,
using for the first time electronic music, techno
dance beat together with the traditional instrumentation,
with an effect of BUDDA BAR sound. Joe Deninzon
on electric violin has created special effects
on the traditional tarantella fiddle
style.
In
ancient times, Southern Italy was part
of Greece and was called Magna Greacia.. the
show will start with a prologue in ancient
Greece.
Aracne is the first Spider Woman, who challenges
the Goddess Athena into a weaving contest.
Aracne wins, and Athena taken by jealousy destroys
her linen, and Aracne in humiliation commits
suicides and hangs herself form a tree, Athena
transforms her into a spider thus condemning
her to weave her web forever.
It
is believed that the young women of Athens
were then taken by a collective depression
and suicide mania. The oracle of Apollo, the
Sun god, the prophetess of the underworld spoke
and said that this collective mania would stop
only if the young women would be allowed to
celebrate the ecstatic rites in honor of Dyonisus
god of ecstasy and wine.
The
women known as Baccante, were later known in
Italy as TARANTATE and the dance PIZZICA
TARANTATA. They suffered from a mental disorder
called tarantismo, which began usually during
the time of the Summer Solstice, often at puberty,
due to unrequited love, repression of sexuality
and erotic desires. Men became tarantati if they
were outcast and not accepted in the society.
They danced for 3 days and 3 nights and on JUNE
29th they all gathered in a church in Puglia
in a collective healing trance ritual.
The show will bring this tradition to life for
the first time in New York Stages.
The dancers will reenact the SPIDER DANCE, becaming
the spider in the movements on the ground, laying
on their back and jumping like a spider, with
the sensual position as if making love in a frenzy
with an imaginary person, and trying to cut the
spiderweb at the same time, spinning faster and
faster. To the fast
6/8 rhythm which is trance inducing. All dressed in white, with red scarves and ribbons,
the dancers move like spiders, on their back,
with acrobatic skills, and all together spin
in circle, with the skirts flying and the ribbons
in the air.
The
concert will also include the ritual Spinning
Dances from Calabria, going back to Middle Ages,
the time of the crusades, and done as
musical exorcism to expel the fear of death by
the plague. It goes on to show how the gathering in the
woods in the Summer Solstice for these dances
led to the Witches Dances, in a great choreography
based on a traditional dance known as BALLI DI
SFESSANIA. It
will also tell the story of a woman
wrongly accused to be a witch for her sexual
freedom, until she becomes a tarantata. The tarantata played by Alessandra Belloni and
bitten by the Spider Aracne (arial dancer) involves
all other women and men in a collective healing
trance ritual . After this cleansing ceremony, the tarantati
celebrate the rites of Baccus as they are celebrated
still in Brazil, as the Goddess of Love and the
Black Madonna appear in a vision to bring healing
, an love.
The audience is invited to participate in this
celebration of life and love with dancing and
wine. |
