Service Description

An immersion in Sicilian dances to experience ancient folk festivals. Many "modern" couple dances arrived in Sicily through returning emigrants, from the post-World War II period to the present day. Polkas, mazurkas, lanzets, and scottisch were imported to the island by those returning from the mainland or the United States, but they evolved from the original dances and acquired a distinctively island character and rhythm. These couple dances, which allowed physical contact between dancers and were associated, in the popular imagination, with modernity and a less impoverished life than that of the countryside, have almost entirely replaced the traditional Sicilian tarantella, danced within a circle. Furthermore, unlike the original dances of Northern Europe, performed by separate couples, in Sicily they have transformed into "social" circle dances, with "exchange of the lady" and constant shuffling of the couples, influenced by the dynamics of the Sicilian Cuntraddanza. The Cuntraddanza is a highly engaging social dance, a sister to the various European country dances or contredanses, probably popularized on the island by the Bourbon court. A hybrid of court dance and peasant ritual dance, performed at important moments of transition for the community (such as weddings or Carnival), the Cuntraddanza is traditionally led by a dance master who calls out the figures in rhyming couplets, in a Sicilian-Frenchified dialect that is often now incomprehensible. The experience will be led by two dance teachers and, if desired, by live musicians. The dance repertoire includes: Sciatamarra di Caltavuturo PALERMO (mazurka) Quattro passi di Maletto CATANIA (Scòtisi in circo) Boemia di Castelmola MESSINA (Polka in circo) Contraddanza cumannata ON REQUEST: with recorded or live music TARGET GROUP: Adults