Tarantelle:
Social Dances from the South of Italy
in
Newberg, Oregon
on
Saturday, October 24th
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What is a tarantella? From ancestral stories to contemporary revivals, place-based pastoral dances -- often referred to as tarantelle -- come to life in social spaces across Southern Italy with specific rhythms, movement codes, and poetry recited in songs.
Join me in Newberg, Oregon (outside of Portland) for a full-day workshop dancing and studying these dances from Southern Italy.
We'll explore the place-anchored diversity under this umbrella term, the way the dances create meaning and identity, and take a closer look at the pizzica pizzica from Puglia.
We will bridge dancing and cultural understanding to realize the profound meaning these dances embody through shared rhythm!
Guiding Themes
Immense Cultural Diversity
We will deconstruct the idea of a singular or stereotypical “tarantella” and discern sensed qualities of music and verse. We’ll learn and embody the core movements of specific dances, connecting in shared rhythm.
Profound Depth
We’ll dance with awareness of the immense depth that any concept of these dances contains. A given label holds a vast world of variations, nuances, and meanings; learned and danced as a factor of place-based identity and social connection.
These rhythms map to points on a map: distinct, and made of diverse peoples and relationships.
To understand this reality, we’ll examine the pizzica pizzica up close, grounded in stories and oral tradition from Puglia.
Folk Dances Popolare Dances
We’ll learn the difference between “folk” and “popolare” dancing – the terms used in Italian language to distinguish between dances embraced in social spaces as living traditions, and dances presented at public events as heritage performances – and the cultural dynamic that distinction itself represents.
These dances hold localized meanings expressed by manners, or codes, of movement & interaction.
Above All, Humility
Above all, we will orient to humility. The rhythms, verses, and dances exist because they are cared for deeply in their homes.
They exist because of generations of pastoral communities who lived and live them, as well as researchers and artists who have listened deeply.
We will learn and dance with gratitude, and with awareness of our location & lens – and the space between seeking and living.
PROGRAM
Morning
We'll spend the morning in the dance studio immersing into rhythm and movement, encountering the vast geography of dance in Southern Italy, where dances are held as part of living traditions that carry identity and shared meaning. Deconstructing the idea of a singular or stereotypical “tarantella," we'll tune our ear to the qualities of different rhythm families to learn the dynamics and codes of dances from cultures in Puglia, Campania, and Calabria and dive more in depth into Puglia's Pizzica Pizzica.
Afternoon
The second half of the day, we'll meet in a beautiful classroom to circle back to some theory: anchoring the movements we've learned to maps, videos, and stories of lived realities and communities in Italy.
WHEN
Saturday, October 24
10am - 12:30pm
lunch break
2:30 - 5pm
WHERE
Chehalem Cultural Center*
415 E Sheridan St.
Newberg, OR
* Some marketing mistakenly labeled the location Chehalem Community Center, instead of Cultural Center. The address was listed correctly.
FACILITATOR
Kate Causbie is a photographer, writer, and teacher with a background in ecopsychology and somatics. She spends half the year in Southern Italy, originally based near the area of Puglia that her great grandparents came from, in pursuit of living music and dance traditions. Diving into a region where she at first knew nothing and no one, it was the following the path of dance that led her into community and connection.
She is focused on understanding the call towards these lineages that is experienced by many people whose ancestors left the lands of the Apennine peninsula. She works to build bridges between these living roots and diaspora communities, centering living local lineage and resisting commercialization or performance narratives — instead seeking older ways of creating together, in complex community.
Since 2024, she has led the organization of an international residency on oral music and dance tradition in Puglia, in collaboration with the town of Galatina and the artistic direction of Rosa Voto from the Melbourne School of Tarantella. The residency creates a critical opportunity for folks from outside of Italy to approach a cultural immersion and learn from local artists and community members who live this music and dance.
COST
Full Day: $150 (sliding scale $100-$200)
Morning Segment Only: $80 (sliding scale $40-$120)
15% of registration costs after travel & space rental expenses are donated to Elderberry Wisdom Farm, an Indigenous-run nonprofit that provides "opportunities for Native American and other Indigenous interns to strengthen their traditional ties with the land and to build career pathways in urban forestry, native plant nursery development, and micro-enterprise development."
If cost is a barrier please reach out and we'll see what we can organize; within the limits of expenses and time being covered, we aim to not turn anyone away for lack of funds.
This is a grassroots event with travel and rental expenses involved, and your registration makes it happen! Refunds are available until September 15th minus an administrative/transaction fee of up to 15%.
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