CANZONIERE GRECANICO SALENTINO
Ballati tutti quanti ballati forte

Fy 8011

8021750801121
Dunya Records
Italia

 

Ballati Tutti Quanti Ballati Forti is the new recording by the group CANZONIERE GRECANICO SALENTINO, one of the first group to present traditional music from Puglia (Southern Italy).
Ballati Tutti Quanti Ballati Forti collects thirteen songs from the traditional repertoire arranged by Daniele Durante and the other members of the group. The texts tell story of the tarantism and other trance phenomenon of the area as well as of other activities related to the local daily life.
Salento, a «cross-roads» area for historical reasons, is the homeland of tarantism (a unique cultural phenomenon of trances and possessions in Italy). A phenomenon that has survived till our days in a context considered completely assimilated by Western civilisation. The second part of the CD title - ca taranta è viva e nun è morta (the taranta is alive and it is not dead) - outlines this conditions.
With the sociological and economical changes also the meaning of tarantism has changed. To think pizzica-tarantata has remained unchanged through the various revolution of the modern society (diminishing of the prevalence of the agriculture, presence of new cultural models via the radio and Tv emigration to foreign lands, ...) is completely wrong. The tarantism, filmed and studied around the end of the 1950s by E. De Martino and his team today is finished, because it is finished the believing that the tarantola (a type of spider) bites and provokes sickness. What today we can do is to observe and find out the roots, still alive, of the old culture and see how they are transformed to live in our modern culture. The young people today do not have direct experience of the hard life of peasant but nevertheless they suffer the same frustrations and difficulties in living their lives as it happened to the previous generations. The new tarantati aren’t possessed by evil spirits but surely are looking for a common god, they joint together in hundreds, take the drums and dance and sing looking for a trance state where the suffering are gone and they feel well.
CANZONIERE GRECANICO SALENTINO was the first group of folklore research in Puglia. It has been active since 1975 and has always attended all musical events in connection with the folk subcultures. They rediscovered their own traditions overcoming the obstacles created by the modern society. For years the idea of an old culture with values has been banned in favour of the progress of the new era. The old ideas were only prejudices and fantasies to fight against and diminished as inferior believings. CANZONIERE GRECANICO SALENTINO has won against this «modern» ideas and keep on presenting the strength and sense of a tradition still alive.

 

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