At the heel of Italy's boot, several centuries of tradition lie behind pizzica, a folk dance style belonging to the tarantella family of dances. Popular belief holds that the dizzying tempo of this dance served as an antidote for the bite of the tarantula wolf spider - and to drive away evil spirits in general. But it has also served as a way for local peasants to dance away the fatigue of their exhausting labours, until they drop…
Pizzica is a tradition that has enjoyed a serious renaissance in recent years. Although fewer people now fear the tarantula and peasants have an easier time of it than they once had, everyone still needs one week in the year to let their hair down and free themselves of their accumulated stress. The La Notte della Taranta festival in Salento fulfils this role, and it is from this festival's house band that singer and tambourine player Antonio Castrignanò emerged.
These days Antonio's name is synonymous with pizzica, as he conquers audiences from America to India. Besides having southern Italian traditions at his fingertips, he is also sensitive to the latest musical trends: on his album Fomenta, for example, with the collaboration of Turkey's Mercan Dede, he sets traditional plucked, string, wind and percussion instruments on electronic foundations that transport the music to faraway worlds. It is no accident that he has been sought out for joint projects by stars of popular and world music such as the Serbian Goran Bregović, American Stewart Copeland, Ireland's The Chieftains, India's Trilok Gurtu and Italian Ludovico Einaudi. Castrignanò knows exactly the place of pizzica in the world, how far its local value extends, and where it can be profitably enriched with various personal touches or fusions. Naturally, this is without forgetting its essence: music of a restorative tempo to have dancers spinning until they drop.


Presented by: Müpa Budapest