MEET THE ARTIST SPECIAL: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino from Italy
From Lecce to Førde :
- There are spiders today too, but we have lost the cure
There is a buzz of voices in the dining room. The guests toast with raised milk glasses filled with red wine, and they burst into joy when yet another platter of homemade goat cheese is brought in from the kitchen. Then Mauro Durante takes out his fiddle.
A SPIDER WEB OF MYTHS: Deep down in the heel of Italy, in the southern region of Puglia, there is a tradition called pizzica. Many stories are told about pizzica, including that the dance can cure spider bites.
He tentatively pulls the bow across the strings, and the conversation is cut short. Mauro and the others in the band Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino have found their instruments and are ready to play, sing and dance.
The rhythmic beats from the tambourine strike into the body. Torebya from the accordion wakes up, the breeze from the flute cools down. Rarely is folk music more intense and urgent. People start to sit uneasily on the chairs, and several people jump up. They grab for available instruments, they sing along and dance. All are included. Youngest man is eleven months old, oldest man is 94 years old.
The first tentative steps
Førdefestivalen is at an Italian farm party, for real. The farm is called Masseria Sant'Angelo and is located in southern Puglia, in the heel of Italy. The German-Italian couple Ursula and Rocco are the hosts, and when they have a friend party, there is always music and dancing.
EVERYONE IS IN: Mauro Durante is married to the dancer in the band, Silvia Perrone. Together, they have an eleven-month-old baby who also comes along when family friends have a yard party.
It is said that it was women who invented the fierce pizzica dance, or taranta. It was a protest against the strict and oppressive structures of the church and the patriarchal social order. The women told of a spider bite so poisonous that it made them mad and unhappy, and they claimed that the only cure was to dance fiercely to rhythmic music. Primal scream therapy, if you will. Or womanizing.
We are here to learn more about pizzica, but it is not that simple. The music and dance are surrounded by myths and can seem a bit closed. Maybe you need to know a little more about life in the Italian countryside, or at least it doesn't hurt to have a party.
Coincidentally, an American film crew from Amazon Prime is also visiting. TV host Mickela Mallozzi has tested her DNA and traced it back to Italy, the Balkans and North Africa, among other places. She travels in the footsteps of her own heritage through the respective folk music traditions. Both she and we are here to learn.
Salute!
Three long tables are set in the dining room, the beating heart of the farm. At one, Mauro and the rest of the band sit with the American film crew. At the other, invited friends from neighboring farms and the surrounding small towns sit, and at the third, those who live on the farm. Here we have been given a place of honor together with a German family with young children who are staying for a two-week farm holiday, and also a retired, passionate couple from France who have chosen a life of exile in Puglia.
GOING GLOBAL: Coincidentally, Mauro and the others in the band Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino are being filmed by Amazon Prime on the same day as Førdefestivalen is visiting.
After a while, a young Italian couple comes and settles down next to us. Rocco shouts out to the kitchen staff that they must cover for two more, and soon they too are sitting with glasses of milk in their hands. Stetteglas is unnecessary mockery when the drinks are so good. In this part of Puglia, they make wine from the Negroamaro grape, which gives a deep red wine with a lot of flavor.
The young couple are friends of Mauro. He tells how they got married.
- Dad told me: She's the daughter of a successful wine merchant, so you have to marry her. I did. And now I drink wine. Salute!
Everyone laughs. It's a funny story that breaks the ice around the dinner table, but also a story that sounds a little foreign to Norwegian ears, as if women are grapes to be picked when they are ripe. We take a closer look at the young woman. Today she is the successful wine merchant in the family business.
What lies behind
The women often stay in the background, Ursula says. On market days, they often stand on the balcony and loudly hawk their wares, or they keep an eye on what is happening on the street.
IN FINSTASEN: Grandma and grandpa are in their 90s, but age is no barrier when it comes to a farm party.
Ursula notices such things, she looks at everyday life with Northern European eyes. She was the first to question why it was always the father-in-law who entertained the guests and never the mother-in-law; she also has a great talent for reciting the traditional lines of verse. For the last five or six years they have been pushing her forward, and now she sometimes gets up and sings along.
The in-laws are in their 90s. They look like they've stepped out of a Hollywood movie, with weathered faces and big smiles. They're getting ready for an interview with the film crew, but they're not quite used to the fast pace. The film crew wants them to play the accordion and dance for the camera, but the father-in-law would rather reminisce about the old days first. Over the years, he's played with several of the great folk musicians from Salentino in Puglia. He rubs his rough hands over his face. He's lost control of his own show, and he can't hear very well either. But okay, he'll let it be.
"Why were the men never bitten by the dreaded spider?" Ursula asked him once. His father-in-law had no answer.
"But how come the women don't get bitten anymore?" Ursula pressed.
“It’s because they’ve stopped working in the fields, and it’s not so easy to get bitten in a café,” the father-in-law said. And with that, he basically answered both questions.
The patriarchy is still standing strong, says Mauro.
- Unfortunately, Italy has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality. There are few women in key roles, whether in the financial or political sectors. Nordic countries have come further, he says.
Italy's answer to voodoo
- Pizzica is both music and dance, explains Mauro, accustomed to having to pick up the teaspoon when talking to outsiders.
- Music has different functions. First of all, it is used in social circles where people meet and dance together. Everyone dances: young and old, women and men, women and women, men and men. Secondly, the music is used in a martial arts dance that we call "dance with knives". This dance is only for men. They hold their index and middle fingers stiffly in front of them like a knife and pretend to challenge each other. And then there is the taranta that you mention. The taranta traditionally had a therapeutic and healing function.
Below you can watch a video of the intense dance and also get a thorough introduction:
- But this spider bite, isn't it just a myth, we ask.
- The bite is symbolic, but it is still real, he says.
Apparently a contradiction, but here lies the explanation.
- The women were in extremely bad shape. It could be depression or heartbreak or anything. The spider was the personification of deep suffering, and through the bite they took the disease into themselves. The cure was a complex ritual linked to the dance. The community would never leave anyone alone, but would rather try to heal them with this ancient ritual.
Tarantismo died out in the mid-20th century, it is said. Tarantismo in its original form no longer exists, but the suffering does.
- Today we still have spiders, but we have lost the cure. Today we go to the doctor and get prescribed medicine, and then we go home and sit alone on the sofa and cry. I believe that dance and trance still have this power to lift you out of suffering and make you feel better. But dancing alone doesn't help. The contact is what's special about pizzica taranta. You dance in a team, barefoot, face to face, says Mauro.
Try to imagine - for a moment - how important tarantismo was (is?) to people. Tarantismo is Italy's answer to Haitian voodoo, the same forces are at work.
- It is impressive that tarantismo could survive until the middle of the twentieth century in a western, Catalan country like Italy, says Mauro.
Words from earlier times
"Ientu, ientu, ientu" sing Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino - hereafter called CGS. It means "wind" in their Italian dialect. CGS sings partly in the local dialect and partly in Greek, an ancient form of language. Greek migrants came to this part of Italy in several waves in Roman and Byzantine times, and Greek is in daily use in nine villages, especially among older people.
STRONG FORCES IN SWING: The dance lasts into the late hours of the night.
"Iento" is about finding your way back to your natural rhythm, the one that enables you to listen to yourself and others instead of constantly multitasking and chasing deadlines and never being fully focused on anything.
Experiencing pizzica live is something completely different from digital playback. The closer you stand to the tambourines, the stronger your reaction is likely to be. It may seem as if the ancient ritual cannot be transmitted with the number system 0 and 1.
Back at the farm, the party has gone into the late hours of the night. The frenetic dancing has calmed down and turned into couples dancing. Men dance with men, and women with women. They dance with their eyes closed and their lips moving in sync with the foreign words. Perhaps they have felt the spider bite, perhaps the marriage is on its way out of their bodies.
The band has been passed down
Mauro's parents founded CGS back in the 1970s. Mauro started playing in the band at the age of 14, and in 2007 he took over as leader from his father. He describes it as a rite of passage. One of the first things he did was replace the older generation with the best young musicians he could find in the area. The latest move came in 2015 when female singer Alessia Tondo joined.
- The band was founded in 1975 by young musicians. Forty years later, the band is again made up of young musicians. It feels right, says Mauro.
Since then, it has only gone uphill. CGS tours the world. They have played with global stars like Ballake Sissiko (the kora player from Mali), and unorthodox pop artists like Stewart Copeland (the drummer in The Police).
See photo series below: The essence of an Italian farm party.
The band receives glowing media coverage around the world.
"CGS was a whirlwind", writes The New York Times. "One of the best bands in the world at the moment without a shred of doubt" writes world music magazine Froots. Some also consider them favorites for the annual Songlines Music Awards.
- It makes me incredibly proud, but the driving force is playing concerts and seeing people's reactions. When their eyes shine with joy, says Mauro.
- Did you feel pressure to take over as leader, we ask.
- It was a mix of excitement and commitment. CGS was a respected band for 32 years. I was 23 and by far the youngest in the band. I was afraid of making mistakes, and of course I made mistakes. Gradually I have become a better leader. I am a perfectionist. I try to improve in all areas: eat better, play better, be a better band leader, husband and father. I may not be able to do it, but I feel better when I try.
Text, Photo and Video BlackStarJournal
Video interview at LO.FT , Lecce