"She’s a genius, she’s terrific," says the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, Dean Emeritus of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, who brought Belloni into his artist program 19 years ago.
"The kind of stuff she does, although it’s ancient over there [Italy], is largely unknown here," Morton says. "Mr. and Mrs. America don’t know about it, and most of the Italian community that’s been here doesn’t know about it either."
I Giullari di Piazza (Players of the Square) presents Southern Italian folk music, ritual dance and theater works based on the extensive library and field research of its cofounders Alessandra Belloni and John La Barbera. The company specializes in the improvisational style of commedia dell’arte theater, which it combines with music, dance, masks, puppetry and mythic rituals of both pagan and early Christian origin. Also of great interest to the troupe is the influence of other cultural traditions on Italian folk culture, such as the parallels between African, Latin and Native American musical & ritual elements, dating back to the ancient cult of Great Goddess.
The Company was in residence at the Center for Italian Studies at New York University, and has been artist-in-residence for the past 20 years at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The group's acclaimed productions include:Tarantella - Spider Dance: a sensual and mystical musical about the healing power of the Tarantella trance dance; Stabat Mater: Donna de Paradiso: the Easter Opera; Tarantata the Dance of the Ancient Spider: a trip into the world of exorcisms, premiered at Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center, 1996);The Voyage of the Black Madonna:depicting Virgil's trip around the world in search of the Black Madonna; Earth, Sun & Moon: (commissioned by Lincoln Center out of Doors, 1992); The Adventures of Don Giovanni and His Servant Pulcinella, performed in commedia dell'arte style; and La Cantata dei Pastori: a Neapolitan renaissance Christmas Play the humorous Christmas show that was performed as it has been for hundreds of years in street presentations in Naples, performed at Caramoor, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Smithsonian.
The company has toured Italy and the US, appearing at such venues as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts where they regularly teach educational programs called A Day in the Italian Renaissance, Madison Square Garden, the Smithsonian Institute, the Metropolitan Museum, Giants Stadium, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. It was featured recently on ABC TV live in Chicago, and in Spider Sex, a National Geographic documentary on spiders in which the group performed an authentic tarantella as a healing trance ritual. The company can be heard on many recordings, including Tarantelle e Canti d'Amore (Naxos World) and Tarantata: The Dance of the Ancient Spider (Sounds True), which was named one of the best world music CDs of the year (2002) in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
I Guillari di Piazza’s packages offer the flexibility to craft programs based on your organization’s interests and resources. Programs can range from a duet or trio of musicians & dancers to the company’s full complement of actors, dancers and musicians. We are more than happy to offer more detailed information to help craft a program that best fits your needs.
Touring Repertoire for I Giullari di Piazza
Tarantella: Spider Dance
New York is bitten again by the Spider— the mystical and sensual music/theater/dance spectacular about the history of the Tarantella, the Southern Italian myth of the bite of the tarantula, birth of the Spider Woman, and celebration of the wild ecstatic rites of Dionysus.
The show follows the storyline with powerful narrator, and a fire dancer/acrobat/singer/ capoeira master as the young Dionysus. We witness the healing journey of a "tarantata" as she is taken to the shaman (Alessandra Belloni), who cures her with the tarantella trance dance.
The show also relates the dual journeys of Athena and Ariadne, who both suffer from tarantismo, transmitted from the bite of the spider Arachne. Athena's drumming induces a trance dance and reveals the age-old myth of Arachne and birth of the spider woman. Ariadne gains insight of her own madness and suicidal mania and actively seeks a cure. The ecstatic drumming and dancing lead Ariadne to New York and Brazil, where she encounters the common threads of universal rhythms and traditional cures through music and dance. Ariadne and Athena re-unite in a cross-cultural celebration of healing which allows her finally to truly love.
“As with all of Belloni's presentations, the show is meticulously researched, with costumes and instrumentation as authentic as possible.”
—Ben Brantley, The New York Times
Tarantelle E Canti d'Amore — Music and Dance Concert
Tarantelle E Canti d'Amore includes excerpts from the company's production “Tarantella - Spider Dance” which feature the wild erotic dance ritual (pizzica tarantata) from Southern Italy used to cure the mythical bite of the tarantula (“the bite of love”). This ancient healing trance dance and exorcism was used to cure a mental disorder called tarantismo, which afflicted mainly women, who felt stuck in the spider web of their society. The program also includes the tarantella delle streghe (witches' dance) from the Renaissance; the medieval danza della morte, the spinning dance of death performed on stilts; powerful ritual drumming and healing chants in honor of the Black Madonna; lullabies; love ballads; and original songs by Alessandra Belloni and John La Barbera, the group's co-founders and directors.
For the entire show, watch this playlist:
Tarantelle E Canti D'Amore presented by the World Music Institute at Symphony Space, New York City 2009
The music comes from different regions of Italy, mainly Naples, Calabria, Sicily, Puglia and Sardegna, and it has been arranged with a very unique World Music Sound.
Based on the Traditional Southern Italian Play by Andrea Perrucci in the 17th century and still performed annually during the Christmas season in the environs of Naples.
With La Befana, the Good Witch of Christmas, Mary and Joseph, the Archangel Gabriel, Devils, Demons, and the commedia dell'arte characters who enact this beloved story of the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, and the triumph of good over evil.
Written during the height of commedia dell'arte popularity in Italy, it combines commedia characteristics with those of the Italian medieval sacra rappresentazione. These elements are fused in settings which borrow from a third genre, the Italian pastoral drama.
The music - tarantellas, villanellas and pastorales - comes from traditional sources, with original music by John La Barbera. Adaptation and direction are by Alessandra Belloni.
"...a rarity among Christmas programs; it somehow manages to be both riotously entertaining and curiously haunting, even profound… a vibrant and uproarious performance." — Alex Ross, The New York Times
The actors will explain the Italian Renaissance history, talking about the painters, art, sculptures, explorers, music and theatre. The musicians will demonstrate instruments as recorders, viola, violin renaissance guitar, will demonstrate the masked character of the comical Renaissance theatre of Commedia dell’Arte such as Pulcinella, Arlecchino, Don Giovanni and the woman Ricciulina, they will teach the song with gestures typical of the Commedia character entitled Ricciulina, and the popular Renaissance dance tarantella del ‘600.
A Children’s Production of The Adventure of Don Giovanni and his Servant Arlecchino
A comic opera ased on a 16th century Neapolitan Commedia dell'Arte manuscript, the play features the hilarious shenanigans of Pulcinella, his fiancee "Ricciulina", a servant who falls instead for his master Don Giovanni, and the servant Arlecchino, Ricciulina’s brother, who favors his sister match with the wealthy Don Giovanni rather than Pulcinella. As in the opera, Don Giovanni is punished in the end when he meets a ghost (giant puppet) and he’s taken to hell by the devil in a "dance macabre" This opera is featured at the CARAMOOR workshops, where children are invited to join singing and dancing the Tarantella with the "irresistible" Ricciulina.
A special children’s workshop of Italian Renaissance Instruments, music, dance and Theatre of the Commedia dell’Arte, Commissioned by Caramoor center for Music and the Arts in 1993.
Watch I Guillari di Piazza’s “Day in the Italian Renaissance at Caramoor":
"I love making a musical connection between ancient and modern, and have been using what I call the TECHNO TARANTELLA BEAT created especially for this show by my violinist Joe Deninzon, who is a master of electric violin with effects."
"…my generation learned to appreciate the musical and theatrical traditions of the so-called peasants of the South, who have a rich folklore directly connected to their agricultural life and to the Earth. I was born in Rome, where unfortunately, the Vatican has repressed most manifestations of these ancient pre-Christian rites."
"My wonderful violinist actually goes on the floor as a tarantato at the end of our concerts, really letting go on his back with his legs up in the air, as he keeps playing the very fast pizzica tarantata on his violin without missing a note! Really spectacular!"
"In Italy during the late seventies, a great revival started of the ancient Southern Italian folk culture combining music, dance and theatre, known as 'Musica and Teatro Popolare'."
