Experience Sicily

Tag: tarantella

  • Sicilian Tarantella Is Old School Speed Dating

    If you’ve ever square danced in the United States, then you already have a glimpse into the culture of Sicilian tarantella folk dance. This scene filmed in 2019 at a party I attended is of rehearsed choreography, but if done traditionally, Sicilian tarantella has specific steps that dancers know, and they follow a caller while…

  • Tarantella In New York City, Saturday, October 19

    Andiamo! Come dance with us! Saturday, October 19 in New York’s Little Italy for the Marco Polo Festival of Chinatown & Little Italy. Calabrese percussionist Massimo Cusato and I will heat things up from 3PM – 3:30PM, when we’ll take the stage for our annual tarantella workshop at the corner of Mott St. and Grand…

  • Dance the Tarantella with me this Sunday in Tappan, NY

    Whenever I have an opportunity to dance, I take it! This one was in May, during our Myths & Mysteries of Sicily: As Above/So Below tour when we were at Villa Palagonia in Bagheria, Sicily. You don’t have to be in Sicily or wait until May 2020 for our next tour to dance a tarantella…

  • Friscalettu Duo

    Agrigento’s annual Sagra del Mandorlo in Fiore going on this week attracts groups from all over the globe, who display their traditional costumes along with exhibiting their culture’s beloved traditional music through performances and processions through town. Photographed in 2016 at the Festival by my cousin Filippo Buttitta, these two young men are playing the…

  • Raise a Tambourine

    Ceramic plate with tarantella dancers from Santo Stefano di Camastra, now in my living room in New York City 

  • Dancing in the Hall of Mirrors

    Tarantella anyone? Villa Palagonia, a band featuring guitarist Joe Ravo, bassist Greg Maker, percussionist Dave Mancuso, and me, Allison Scola, on vocals, clarinet, guitar, and frame drums, will be performing this coming Wednesday, Nov. 2 at 7PM in New York City at Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 3 (185 Orchard Street). We invite you to come…

  • The Most Awesome Day: Taranta Sicily Fest

    If I could dream up the most awesome day, this would be it: August 20 in Scicli, the The Taranta Sicily Fest: A Tarantella music and dance festival in Sicily!!!! And the headliner is one of my favorite Italian artists and the leader of the Taranta Power movement: Eugenio Bennato. I mean, seriously. My two…

  • Friscalettu: Sicily’s Reed Flute

    Sicilian music is punctuated with the sounds of the friscalettu or reed flute, pictured. Traditional tarantellas (folk dances) are colored with motives from this instrument, often hand carved by the player using the wood from fig or olive trees or the oleander shrub. Like the harmonica, a friscalettu (friscaletto, in Italian language versus Sicilian) player…

  • Marranzano: Sicily’s Mouth Harp

    Known as a marranzano or marranzanu in Sicily, this musical instrument is played throughout the world. It goes by other names such as jew’s harp, jaw harp, mouth harp. Marranzano is played using breath, one’s oral cavity (mouth, teeth, lips, jaw), and a finger to pluck the reed that sits within the frame. The reed,…