Translating the Italian south: the Tarantella revival from Italy to the U.S.

Abstract

This study explores national and international redefinitions (1970s and 1990s onwards) of tarantella--a composite of Southern Italian folk music and dance traditions--as a case study to explore the theoretical and ethical issues embedded in such a process of translation. By evaluating the global recontextualizations of the tarantella genre, I investigate how the dynamics of revival and global display, and specifically through tourism, translation, and world music venues, affect our understanding of local folk/popular culture within the larger context of globalization and international migration. Unlike most publications on the revival, which study the Salentine "pizzica," my focus is on the revival of a less-known subgenre of the tarantella, the "tammurriata" from the Naples area. I illustrate how within the revival, the ethics of place embedded in the tammurriata shift from a rural, religious, and rooted setting to an urban, secular, and migrant one. I also show how these changes influence gender roles in both the Italian and Italian American contexts.