This book ventures into the history, global circulation, and recontextualization of tarantella, a genre of Southern Italian folk music and dance; in particular, it explores this phenomenon by observing local and national music and dance festivals and international dance performances and workshops, as well as by analyzing the contemporary production of new tarantella music text. Examining tarantella's changing image and role among Italians and Italian Americans, the book illuminates how factors like tourism, translation, and world music venues have shifted the ethics of place embedded in the ta ... More

This book ventures into the history, global circulation, and recontextualization of tarantella, a genre of Southern Italian folk music and dance; in particular, it explores this phenomenon by observing local and national music and dance festivals and international dance performances and workshops, as well as by analyzing the contemporary production of new tarantella music text. Examining tarantella's changing image and role among Italians and Italian Americans, the book illuminates how factors like tourism, translation, and world music venues have shifted the ethics of place embedded in the tarantella cultural tradition. Once rural, religious, and rooted, tarantella now thrives in settings urban, secular, migrant, and ethnic. The book argues that the genre's changing dynamics contribute to reimagining southern Italian identity, especially in relation to the Italian Southern Question; in fact, they help Southern Italian groups redefine their own identities as immigrants within a larger Mediterranean and postcolonial context. They also translate tarantella into a different kind of performance that serves new social and cultural groups and purposes. Indeed, as tarantella moves from local and national Italian festivals to the Italian diaspora as well as to New Age and world-music scenes, its growth promotes a reassessment of gender relations in the Italian South and helps create space for Italian and Italian American women to reclaim gendered aspects of the genre.