choreography Mattia Russo and Antonio De Rosa
original music Alejandro da Rocha
voice Enza Pagliara
drums Elisa Barucchieri; Enza Pagliara
performers Martina Aniciello, Giacomo Bertoni, Edoardo Brovardi, Moreno Guadalupi
Julien Guiborg, Fabiana Mangialardi, Giulia Pagnotta, Alice Zucconi
costumes Luca Guarini
lighting Alessandro Catacchio
in collaboration with Mattia Russo and Antonio De Rosa
Duration 30 min.
Wolf Spider is a journey that intertwines myth, tradition, and contemporaneity, drawing inspiration from tarantism. This ancient phenomenon – where the symbolic bite of the tarantula induced a state of affliction, relieved only through music and dance – is reinterpreted as a metaphor for inner crisis, suffering, and rebirth. The dancers embody the intensity of pizzica in all its forms: from the combative pizzica scherma to the trance-like taranta. Their obsessive, rhythmic movements do not represent: they transmit. A ritual energy flows through the body, expressing torment and release. The dance is infused with symbols and visions deeply rooted in Apulian culture and landscape. The stage – dominated by sharp contrasts of shadow and light – becomes a metaphor for an eternal cycle of death and renewal. The music builds into an overwhelming crescendo. The frame drum’s rhythm, reworked and intensified by Alejandro da Rocha, drives the dancers into a state of ritual trance, tracing a cathartic journey where the struggle with the spider becomes a dance of exorcism, release, and transformation. The ritual evolves: what was once a collective and therapeutic dance now resurfaces in contemporary trance practices, urban dances, and the raw, visceral gestures of a new generation. Dance becomes a bridge between past and present, between the community and the individual, between longing and liberation. Evoking the energy of Dionysian rites and the therapeutic power of tarantism, Wolf Spider explores the ancestral force of the body in motion. It is a work that celebrates cultural heritage by transforming it into contemporary language – bringing folklore from the past onto the present’s stage. In an increasingly globalised world, the performance invites us to rediscover our roots as a revolutionary act of awareness and belonging.