Place, Culture and Identity: an historical and ethnographical study of Pizzica and Tarantism in Salento. Completion of a monograph for Peter Lang.

这项研究项目是对意大利南部萨伦托发现的披萨卡音乐和舞蹈以及相关的塔兰提斯仪式的历史和民族志研究。研究问题考察了地点/地点、文化生产以及个人和地区认同之间的关系。这将通过表演和文化研究、人类学和人种学、医学史和文化地理学等多个学科的理论来框架。塔伦提斯舞是一种治疗舞蹈的仪式，其文字记录可以追溯到15世纪。在狼蛛中，受害者，或狼蛛，据说被蜘蛛咬了，最常见的是狼蛛，并陷入昏昏欲睡的状态。他们可以随着当地一种名为披萨饼的音乐而跳舞，这种音乐可以帮助他们排出体内的毒素。人们通常认为蜘蛛不一定是真的，但它的叮咬和随后的疾病成为了应对意大利南部农村生活的社会经济压力的隐喻和躯体表达。对于社区来说，这也是一次集体的治疗体验，他们聚集在一起，分享这场舞蹈的“治愈”，这场舞蹈可以持续三天。从15世纪到今天，有一系列丰富的历史学家、医生、哲学家、社会学家和人类学家对这一仪式进行了大量的文字记录。对这些历史观的研究提供了对每个时期不断变化的科学和哲学范式的迷人洞察力。尽管这种仪式的表演现在已经很少了，但在萨伦托，披萨音乐和舞蹈已经复兴，这导致了一种新的传统--新塔伦蒂斯主义的发明。这在一定程度上是由于该地区的研究人员响应埃内斯托·德·马蒂诺的开创性人类学研究(1961)而产生的影响。新塔伦蒂斯主义现在被Salentines用作一种地区认同和文化抵抗的形式，通过神话般的与过去的联系，以及通过引入新的音乐和舞蹈节、唱片公司以及将披萨卡音乐与当代形式(包括说唱、雷鬼和嘻哈)融合在一起，引发社会经济转变。这项研究项目包括对历史学家、医生、教会人士和人类学家对这一仪式的历史记录的审查，以及2001年至2007年我在萨伦托进行实地考察时的材料，即访谈、节日记录以及我自己学习和练习音乐和舞蹈的经历。这将有助于对作家窃取仪式的方式进行历史回顾，并调查萨伦托新塔伦蒂斯主义新传统的创造，研究旅游业的增长如何通过对音乐和舞蹈的兴趣影响文化生产以及个人和地区认同。因此，我作为一名研究人员的地位和责任也在研究中受到质疑。这项研究的最终结果将是与彼得·朗签约的一本题为《仪式、狂喜和悔恨：萨伦托蜘蛛的舞蹈》的专著，以及一篇将提交给《新戏剧季刊》的文章，重点是Pizzica Scherma，一种还没有用英语写过的武术形式的舞蹈。由于该项目的跨学科性质，这些成果将吸引许多学科的广泛学者。我自己的学术和专业培训和工作一直在表演、文化研究、人类学和民族学领域，因此我很有能力承担这种跨学科的工作。我还接受过音乐和舞蹈方面的培训，可以在专著中对两者进行详细的分析，这在这种性质的研究中是不寻常的，但就仪式中两者之间的关系而言很重要。

This research project is an historical and ethnographical study of pizzica music and dance, and the related ritual of tarantism, found in Salento, southern Italy. The research questions examine the relationship between place/site, cultural production, and personal and regional identity. This will be framed through theories from a number of disciplines including performance and cultural studies; anthropology and ethnography; medical history and cultural geography. Tarantism is a therapeutic dance ritual, with written records dating back to the 15th Century. In tarantism, the 'victim', or tarantata, is supposedly bitten by a spider, most commonly the tarantula, and falls into a state of lethargic trance. They are 'cured' from this by dancing in response to an indigenous form of music, the pizzica, which helps to 'sweat' the poison from their bodies. It is usually acknowledged that the spider is not necessarily 'real', but its bite and subsequent illness become a metaphor for and somatic expression of coping with socio-economic pressures of life in rural southern Italy. It is also a collective therapeutic experience for the community, who come together to share in the 'cure' of the dance, which can last for three days. There is a continuity of extensive written records about the ritual from the 15th Century to today, by a rich array of historians, medical practitioners, philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists. A research of these historical views offers a fascinating insight into the changing scientific and philosophical paradigms of each period. Although performance of the ritual is now rare, pizzica music and dance have been revived in Salento, which has resulted in the invention of a new tradition, neo-tarantism. This was developed in part by the influence of researchers in the region in response to Ernesto de Martino's seminal anthropological study (1961). Neo-tarantism is now used by Salentines as a form of regional identity and cultural resistance through a mythologized link to the past, as well as instigating a socio-economic shift through the introduction of new music and dance festivals, recording labels, and a fusion of pizzica music with contemporary forms including rap, reggae, and hip-hop. This research project involves an examination of historical records of the ritual by historians, medical practitioners, ecclesiastical figures and anthropologists, as well as inclusion of material from my field trips to Salento, from 2001 to 2007, namely interviews, documentation of festivals, and my own experience of studying and practicing the music and dance. This will allow for both an historical overview of ways in which the ritual has been appropriated by the writers, as well as an investigation into the creation of the new tradition of neo-tarantism within Salento, examining how the increase in tourism is affecting cultural production, and personal and regional identity, through interest in the music and dance. Thus my own position and responsibility as a researcher is also under interrogation within the study.This research will culminate in a monograph under contract with Peter Lang, entitled 'Ritual, Rapture and Remorse: the dance of the spider in Salento', and an article to be submitted to New Theatre Quarterly, focusing on the pizzica scherma, a martial form of the dance which has not been written about in English. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the project, these outputs will appeal to a broad range of scholars across a number of disciplines. My own academic and professional training and work has been within the fields of performance, cultural studies, anthropology and ethnology, thus I am in a good position to undertake interdisciplinary work of this kind. I have also trained in both music and dance, and can offer a detailed analysis of both within the monograph, which is unusual in a study of this nature, but important in terms of the relationship between them within the ritual.