What is the Pizzica dance?
Pizzica (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpittsika]) is a popular Italian folk dance, originally from the Salento peninsula in Apulia and later spreading throughout the rest of Apulia and the regions of Calabria and eastern Basilicata. It is part of the larger family of tarantella.
Who created the Pizzica dance?
Pizzica or Taranta is a traditional popular dance of the city of Taranto and Salento region. This dance, invented by women, had the intent to show their desire to be free from the oppression of a strict and patriarchal culture.
What is Taranta?
1. A lively, whirling southern Italian dance in 6/8 time, once thought to be a remedy for tarantism. 2. The music for this dance. [Italian, after Taranto.]
When was the Pizzica dance invented?
1797
In general, it is part of the large traditional family of the “Tarantelle”. The word “Pizzica” appears for the first time in a source written in 1797, referring to an evening dance organized by the nobility of Taranto in honor of King Ferdinand IV of Borbone, who was on a visit to the city.
When was the pizzica created?
The word “Pizzica” appears for the first time in a source written in 1797, referring to an evening dance organized by the nobility of Taranto in honor of King Ferdinand IV of Borbone, who was on a visit to the city.
How the Pizzica is performed?
The tarantata pizzica takes its origins from the ancient therapeutic dance of Tarantism, made up of very fast jumping steps and non-stop spins that follow the pressing rhythm of the tambourines, in an exhausting and entrancing dance at the same time that leads the dancers to dance without truce until the end of their …
What caused Tarantism?
Italy was afflicted with tarantism, an epidemic presumably caused by the bite of venomous spiders. Its effects had to be counteracted by distributing the poison over the whole body and “sweating it out,” which was accomplished by dancing to a special kind of music, the tarantella.
What is tarantism in psychology?
A psychological illness characterized by an extreme impulse to dance, prevalent in southern Italy from the 15th to the 17th century, and widely believed at the time to have been caused by the bite of a tarantula, a large black wolf spider of southern Europe.