Tarantella

The tarantella is a family of southern Italian folk dances in rapid 6/8 time, danced by couples or circles to tamburello, accordion, violin and guitar, and named for Taranto and the tarantula whose bite it was believed to cure. In Salento its ritual form, the pizzica tarantata, drove the healing dances of tarantismo documented by Ernesto de Martino, while Neapolitan variants fed the nineteenth-century salon, where *Rossini*'s "La danza" and *Chopin*'s Tarantelle fixed it as a composed character piece. Ensembles such as the *Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare* and *Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino* lead its modern revival on record and at festivals such as La Notte della Taranta.