TARANTELLA AND ME

For many young people of my generation in the Italy of the 70s-perhaps in contrast to Germany-an engagement with the 'authentic' and original folk culture was a political responsibility which went alongside a rejection of the petty bourgeois cultural levelling prevalent at the time. It was also seen as politically important to re-discover the villages and those few people still living there who were the last witnesses to this rural culture.

Astonishingly, almost thirty years later this ancient culture has merged with the modern Zeitgeist and Tarantella, until recently practiced only by a practically forgotten minority of local musicians, has become a mass phenomenon across southern Italy. Putting aside for a moment the negative aspects of all mass phenomena, above all the risk of destroying the very essence of the culture, this demonstrates at the very least a desperate search for a strong identity, widespread across generations and geographical differences in Italy, which is driving people from all corners of the peninsula to search for an authentic feeling for life in the South of Italy.