SEGMENTO TARANTELLA FESTIVAL

20 November,

Under the artistic direction of the Melbourne School of Tarantella, the Segmento Tarantella Festival hosted local bands Zumpa!, Rustica Project, Sanacori and, directly from Calabria, Progetto Tarantella - Valentina & Fortunato. The festival was honored by the presence of special guest Alfio Antico, Sicilian singersongwriter, musician, theater actor, and one of the world's leading interpreters of the tammorra, a traditional large frame drum.

In spite of the not-so-sunny weather, around 2000, throughout the day, people joined us in a celebration of traditional southern Italian music and dance. The Melbourne School of Tarantella invited the audience to join them in dancing, recreating the feeling of a festa di paese!

At Segmento , we believe that understanding different cultures and traditions in a globalized and multiethnic society is essential for the harmonious and peaceful coexistence of all communities. For this reason, we brought together Australian and Italian creatives to provide an original and multimedia immersive experience of Italian traditional music and dance. Participants and facilitators included dancers, musicians, writers, poets, and visual artists.

The festive atmosphere attracted people of all ages, connecting the elderly with the young, and encouraging second- and thirdgeneration Italo-Australians to maintain a bond with their cultural heritage beyond language and other already established cultural practices.

People from all walks of life joined in, proving that sharing aspects of the southern Italian tradition is not necessarily tied to one’s geographical provenance. A multimedia exhibition titled Calabrian Voices, curated by Yamunindi Art & Culture, showcased works by five Melbourne-based Australian artists. The artworks respond to the themes of cultural identity and belonging and encourage reflections on our shared experiences of migration and relationships to our roots.

The event would not have been possible without the support of Nixora Group, main sponsor of the festival. Special thanks to Lina Messina, Mayor of Darebin City Council, where the festival was held; Nicola Carè, Member of the Italian Parliament, for his continuous support; Sam Sposato, President of the Federation Association of Calabrian Clubs of Victoria, for involving the community. We are also thankful to Claudia Masina, the festival manager who coordinated all event-related activities; Helen Raizer, who in many occasions managed the public relations for the events run by Segmento ; and the Monash University Italian Club and the Melbourne University Italian Club for volunteering at the event.

by Innocenza Giannuzzi

The tarantella calabrese is a dance and musical tradition that goes back to when Calabria was the heart of Magna Graecia. A few centuries before the birth of Christ, some populations settled in southern Italy, enriching the land of Calabria with culture, flavors, and traditions that can be felt and seen even today. But perhaps not everyone knows that our tarantella is also a child of that ancient culture. Although it is difficult to frame this dance and musical practice because of all the changes, transpositions, and geographical and historical variations that have developed over the centuries, we can certainly say that, unlike its betterknown cousin from Puglia, our tarantella has nothing to do with the bites of poisonous spiders, it does not aim to exorcize an evil through dance and rhythm. Instead, it has a symbolism more related to community and territory. It was originally danced on festive occasions or special occasions, whether public or private. The context was always the rota, a circle that was composed by the dancers and that drew the area where the music and dancing took place and metaphorically identified the territory. The “dance master” directed the course of the ritual and invited the couples to the center of the rota, which became a symbolic theater of community relations: it could be a dance of pure joy, when dancing together with a relative or friend, a dance of power, if there were important figures in the community at the center, a dance of competition if people of the same sex were performing together.

The lyrics reflect this variety, and the same language changes greatly among all the vast areas of Calabria.

Sing those who leave, sing those who stay, sing those who are nostalgic for what they left behind, sing those who would like to reach another place in the world. Music has always been the traveling companion of those who have left their villages to embark on a long journey, in search of a new future. It has accompanied our travelers through the tears of a land left behind and through the joys of a land found, an invisible thread with their roots that has never been broken, that has marked the days, months, and years of their lives. The tarantella – its notes have always kept their regional identity alive, accompanying them in moments of joy and cheering their nostalgia.