Concertmaster Dardust, Italian songwriter, producer and pianist, staged an innovative electro-pizzica, which captivated the audience of the 25th Notte della Taranta concert for three hours, a crowd that totalled at 200,000 people over the span of the event, according to organisers.
The performance has been dubbed a “notte spaziale”, by Dardust; a journey through time and space that begins at the the tradition of the tambourine and then goes on to touch on new worlds and the futuristic sounds of electronic music.
This year’s international guest was Belgian rapper Stromae, who performed a pizzicato version of his famous song ‘Alors On Danse’ interpolated with popular music. The rapper performed pizzica steps to the rhythms, clapping his hands and moving in time to the tambourines.
On the Concertone stage, the traditional songs of the Salento folk tradition performed by the Orchestra della Taranta were reinterpreted by pop artist Marco Mengoni, who with his unmistakable voice performed the traditional song ‘Klama in griko’, and then his hit ‘Ma stasera’.
Songstress Elodie danced the ‘pizzica di San Vito’ and then performed her track ‘Tribale’ in a ‘pizzicato’ version with tambourines. Romagnolo singer-songwriter Samuele Bersani interpreted the poignant love song ‘Lu Ruciu de lu mare’ and then his own ‘Chicco e Spillo’. There was also rapper Massimo Pericolo, Tuscan musician Kety Fusco and her electric harp, and the band Studio Murena.
Between songs, in a journey through the sounds and rhythms of the Salento ‘pizzica’, Dardust, who himself played some instrumental pieces on the drums, included tributes to the international pop-rock world, from David Bowie to the Cure, to the Chemical Brothers and Goran Bregovic, who was the Taranta’s master concertmaster ten years ago, first opening the event up to the influence of Balkan music.
In Dardust’s electronic Taranta, ten of the 30 songs were accompanied by choreography by Irma Di Paola; ten moving pictures, like theatrical frescoes, to the rhythm of the pizzica, in some cases pushing the innovative spirit of this year’s spectacle towards unexpected horizons, ‘fluid’ as Dardust described them.
The electrified crowd at the 25th Notte della Taranta concert. (Photo: ANSA)
One Taranta was so innovative that it pushed the concept of reinterpretation beyond musical genres, with choreography that also featured drag queens and Filippo Rossi’s psychedelic visual projections, framed by the typical illuminations of traditional Salento festivals.
The performance also featured an homage to Pier Paolo Pasolini on the centenary of his birth, with an unreleased piece based on popular poems from his ‘Canzoniere italiano’.
The customary closing of the Concertone, with ‘Kalinifta’ interpreted by Madame, Elodie, Mengoni, Bersani and the orchestra, once again made the audience explode, late into the night, arms raised to the sky and clapping to the rhythm of “Larilò larilò lallerò, larilò larilò llà llà”.
