The dance of the Holy Spider

Originally they were dancing rituals to cure those people (mainly women) that were said to have been "bitten" by the tarantula. For a long time those rituals were practised discretely within the family circle or amongst neighbours, kept quiet behind closed doors.

This tradition disappeared in many parts of South Italy.
For a while it survived mostly as a village tradition of communal dances that were performed on religious as well as profane occasions as a way to forget the cares and constraints of everyday life.

It is not a coincidence that the rather minimalist choreography and step sequences of many of the Tarantella variations lead to a state in which you can forget yourself.

The group (the community of dancers) offers each individual a sense of security and identification, because all the dancers come from the same village or the same family.