The popular pizzica dance is now a worldwide phenomenon: but what is really behind the story of the women bitten by the taranta?
Salento, a peninsula overlooking the Adriatic and Ionian seas, has always been a crossroads of peoples, cultures and traditions. Over the centuries, this land has been crossed by Messapi, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans and Aragonesi, who have left an indelible mark on its history and its unique character. However, if it was once considered a passing destination, today you can no longer land in Salento by chance: going there is a choice, which brings with it the promise of living an authentic and unforgettable experience for those seeking authenticity, beauty and tradition.
“Land where the earth ends”, sings Vinicio Capossela, paraphrasing the expression Finibus terrae attributed by the ancient Romans to Salento precisely to indicate the extreme border of their territories. The song in question is Il Ballo Di San Vito, where the author describes the feast of San Rocco in Torre Paduli – a town 15 minutes from the historical Don Totu residence – where every year, during the night between 15 and 16 August, people from all over Salento they flock to dance to the rhythm of the pizzica, a dance similar to the uncontrolled movements caused by Sydenham’s Corea disease, known as the “San Vito dance”.
The pizzica is nothing other than the dance expression of physical pain and convulsions which until a few decades ago were believed to be caused by the poisonous bite of the tarantula. This popular dance is now internationally famous for the travelling festival that passes through the squares of Salento every summer and ends in the great Concertone of Melpignano, an event capable of attracting hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world every year. But there was a time – not too many decades ago – when pizzica was still that ancestral rite inherited from the Dionysian cults of ancient Greece, used by the peasant community as musical therapy to ward off the effects of the tarantula bite.
In the tobacco fields, as well as in the vineyards and olive groves, it was not uncommon to come across poisonous spiders, after whose bite one fell into a state of trance from which one could only awaken through the music that specialised musicians performed for several days. in a row. A phenomenon that in the 1960s was studied and described by the greatest Italian anthropologist of the 20th century, Ernesto De Martino, in his famous text The Land of Remorse. Thanks to his research, it emerged that what triggered these states of physical and mental shock – mostly in women – was not actually spider venom, but rather a social poison.
Tarantism was nothing other than the expression of the psychological and social discomfort that many of them experienced until beyond the middle of the last century and partially recently told in the award-winning film C’è Ancora Domani, Paola Cortellesi’s directorial debut. The bite of the tarantula metaphorically represents the straw that breaks the camel’s back, an event beyond which the victim “chose” to alienate herself from the world but at the same time to attract its attention by physically demonstrating her discomfort, unleashed and vented through ritual dance.
From apotropaic legend to socio-anthropological manifestation, to the point of becoming a cultural and tourist phenomenon. The pizzica dance reminds us of the origins and recent evils of a South that is now finally capable of rising again and showing itself with its head held high even in its ancient weaknesses to those who, like travellers who choose Salento as a holiday destination, love to go beyond the superficial and immerse themselves in the depths of the cultural bowels of a territory and its people.