Tarantelle & Love Songs featuring Alessandra Belloni

Experience a passionate journey through Southern Italy with a mesmerizing performance of drumming, dance, and storytelling. This fiery concert showcases the sensual dance rituals of Southern Italian women, bringing ancient traditions to life.

At the heart of the performance is the powerful Pizzica Tarantata, a hypnotic trance dance from Puglia, historically used as a form of music and dance therapy to heal the mythical bite of the tarantula—a condition linked to a deep, melancholic state, dating back to the ancient Dionysian rites of Greece.

The repertoire features evocative love songs, soothing lullabies, and processional chants, alongside the thunderous rhythms of the Tammorriata, a drumming tradition honoring the Black Madonna.

To conclude this exhilarating experience, the audience is invited to join in a joyful Tarantella or Pizzica dance, weaving a circle of life and energy with flowing red ribbons—a true celebration of rhythm, passion, and healing.

Alessandra Belloni is a world-renowned percussionist, singer, dancer, and actress born in Rome. Belloni’s extensive body of work focuses on traditional southern Italian folk dances, and singing. She has spent many years participating in festivals and ceremonies in remote areas of southern Italy, interviewing elders, researching women’s spirituality, ethnomusicology, and religion. An award-winning tambourine virtuoso, Belloni is committed to preserving the rich traditions of southern Italian folk rituals and culture, where music and dance are considered rites of purification and healing. She is an artist in residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Host or Publisher The Italian American Museum of Los Angeles