Alessandra Belloni
Alessandra Belloni is an artists, academic, and spiritual guide. She is who got me started on my own journey of understanding healing of sexual trauma through dance. I was drawn to Southern Italy onto an ancestral pilgrimage, where my grandparents are from, when I began having my own unearthed memories of sexual violence. I learned about this healing tradition while there. That is also when I found Alessandra Belloni's work, I then understood more deeply why I was called to this region to do my own healing work. Though I was not there in the right time of year to participate in any festivities around this tradition, I did learn much about it's presence and significance within the culture.
Belloni is one of the people who is taking this tradition back, bringing life back into the original context in which the tradition stemmed from. Belloni hold workshops in both southern Italy, Sicily, and in the United Stated to share her wisdom with others around tarantism as a women's ecstatic healing tradition. Inviting those, who might now have been afflicted while in southern Italy by the bite of the tarantula, but by the bit of the oppression and suppression held under patriarchy. Teaching embodied dance, and tambourine to women, she is on a journey of reinventing the tradition while also holding strong to the history and intention of teachings and worship. Remaking the ritual and ceremony to fit current day context.
The video below is taken from a series Belloni has done through her academic artistry bringing this practice to light and onto stage. She works intentionally to switch gender roles as she examines the presence of participants and power at hand being played out. The movements and music are brilliant in their dynamics, centering the movement of the spider dance, and the musicians in their intensity as they play towards healing.
Belloni is one of the people who is taking this tradition back, bringing life back into the original context in which the tradition stemmed from. Belloni hold workshops in both southern Italy, Sicily, and in the United Stated to share her wisdom with others around tarantism as a women's ecstatic healing tradition. Inviting those, who might now have been afflicted while in southern Italy by the bite of the tarantula, but by the bit of the oppression and suppression held under patriarchy. Teaching embodied dance, and tambourine to women, she is on a journey of reinventing the tradition while also holding strong to the history and intention of teachings and worship. Remaking the ritual and ceremony to fit current day context.
The video below is taken from a series Belloni has done through her academic artistry bringing this practice to light and onto stage. She works intentionally to switch gender roles as she examines the presence of participants and power at hand being played out. The movements and music are brilliant in their dynamics, centering the movement of the spider dance, and the musicians in their intensity as they play towards healing.