EARTH TONES: WHEN SPIDERS DANCE

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by Baruch

At the World Music and Dance (WOMAD) Festival on Saturday, July 29, a Malagasy group, Tarika, performed on the Troubadour Stage. Their bright and bouncy music was entertaining, but I found them monotonous after three songs and decided to drift over to the smaller, more intimate Starbucks stage, where, among other attractions, I would find chairs.

As I walked through the entrance to the hedged-in area, I heard a single woman's voice, accompanied only by some sort of drum. A moment later, I could see her, too: dark and intense, dressed in white, tapping on a frame drum. The drum alternated with a tambourine as her instrument of choice. I found an empty wicker chair and sat; I was soon wrapped in the strong silk of her singing. She explained, in a heavy Italian accent, the songs she sang about the Black Madonna and the tarantella. The program identified her as Alessandra Belloni.

Ms. Belloni said that she had a CD available at the souvenir tent, and that she'd be teaching a class in the tarantella later that day. I was attracted not only by the power, energy and serenity of her performance, but also by her identification of the Black Madonna with Isis, and the tarantella with women's healing mysteries. So I bought the CD (getting it autographed) and attended the dance workshop.

The CD is called Tarantata: Dance of the Ancient Spider (on the Sounds True label) and features a booklet containing extensive explanations and context for the music it presents. Unfortunately, it doesn't include translations of the lyrics. I asked Ms. Belloni about this when I got my autograph; she said the songs were mostly too difficult to translate, often being nonsense verses.

According to Ms. Belloni's notes, the tarantella, or "little spider," can be traced back to "the ancient orgiastic Greek rites in honor of the God Dionysus," performed in Southern Italy when it was a Greek colony. Women continued to dance it because it healed a condition of the soul called "the bite of the spider" - a serious depression caused by grief, trauma or the severely limited roles allowed to women in Southern Italian culture.

Ms. Belloni discovered the healing powers of the tarantella for herself when she competed on tambourine at the annual Pizzica (spider bite) festival in Salerno. After playing all night and winning the competition, she asked if there were still women who followed the old ways of the tarantati, the ones who danced ecstatically to heal themselves, and was told, "Why? Don't you know that you are one!" She slept on the beach and woke to a new energy and lightness.

Returning to New York, she put her researches to work. She began to teach dance and tambourine to mental patients. She also formed a performance troupe, I Giullari di Piazza, to join her in promoting her musical ideas and healing practices. The group is John La Barbera on guitar and other stringed instruments, Glen Velez on frame drums, Steve Gorn on bansuri flutes, Joe Deninzon on violin and Charlie Giordano on accordion. La Barbera also composes.

"Pizzicarella" (Little Bite) - I have included title translations when the booklet has them - is the first of Tarantata's 16 cuts and opens with a solo violin mournfully contemplating life. After a few bars, though, the other instruments leap in and the tambourine punches out a lively dance, the traditional healing tarantella. Dance to this, and you'll be breathless. Other dance numbers include "Ballo Tondo" (Round Dance) from the island of Sardegna, and "Tarantella di Sannicandro," an erotic dance from Puglia.

Many of the other tunes, like "Ave Mama e Deu" (Hail Mary, Mother of God), are processional chants or traditional prayers to the Madonna in her many local forms. Others include "Agur Iziarko," in honor of the Black Madonna of Biarritz; "Canto della Madonna di Montserrato," for the Black Madonna of Calabria; and "Madonna della Grazia," a processional dance and plea to the Madonna of Grace.

A few original songs were inspired by Ms. Belloni's researches into Goddess forms such as Yemanja. "Canto di Sant'Irene" (Song of the Mermaids) combines material inspired both by Calabria and Bahia, while the final cut, "Inno al Brasile" (Song for the Sacred Tree), mixes samba, bossa nova and cavallo marino, all Brazilian rhythms. They provide quite a contrast to the more traditionally Italian-sounding numbers.

These songs and dances are powerful and beautiful combinations of medieval rhythms, Italian lyrics, modern sensibility and a desire to honor the divine and the prosaic in women's lives as well as soothe all troubled hearts. Allesandra Belloni's strong, rich voice moves through them like warm colored threads completing a woven pattern of ancient life lived again today.

You can order this CD from http://www.alessandrabelloni.com. You'll also find more information about Ms. Belloni's previous recordings, her performances and her other activities there. Dance and enjoy.

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