SONGS, POETS, PUPI AND TARANTE

MEETINGS WITH WITNESSES OF POPULAR CULTURE

By Valter Giuliano

Rome 2007

This is a book on the experiences developed during the many years of the Italian Network of Popular Culture and is edited by the publishing house Squi[libri] . It contains compositions by Gian Luigi Bravo and Carlo Petrini, texts with translation of tracks included in the translation of tracks included in the enclosed CD and a considerable photographic apparatus. Then, the volume offers, with pizziche and starlings songs in eight rhymes and polyphonic choruses, a vibrant description of an exceptional mosaic of sounds and cultures, which are the major resources of the Italian territory.

This is an exciting trip in Italy, from Piedmont to Sicily, in search of Witnesses of Popular Culture, who could save the tradition, reinterpret and innovate it, by keeping alive the heritage of fathers, from Amerigo Vigliermo and the Canavese Bajolese Choir, to Turi Grasso and the Acireale Pupi’s Opera, from Uccio Aloisi, the patriarch of Salentine Pizzica, to the Spontaneous Group of Magliano Alfieri, from the shepherds poets from Latium to the poets from Carpino, a sequence of dialogues that is a story to multiple entries of the extraordinary wealth of musical and cultural expressions crossing Italy.

It shows “ landscapes of feelings” delineating a picture of popular culture, so firmly rooted in the territory. This picture of Italy, wrongly considered minor, reveals an extraordinary creative vivacity. The task is to continue this journey to let it surface and to reaffirm the importance of identity, which is more and more enriched by the dialogue and the contamination, until to represent a multiple identity, that is a founding value of our country.

“ We found them among those who were able to save the tradition, protect, reinterpret and innovate it. Their proud and obstinacy, their enlightened stubbornness do not let the oblivion cancel forever the ancient knowledge, which had to be recognized and rewarded.

That is why we decided to let them come back into the limelight, giving them the right recognition, that even the national community should give them for their work, as they preserved some ancient knowledge, that someone would hurriedly and foolishly let drop like useless scrap metals, to be delivered to the oblivion. We wanted to tell them, symbolically, a collective thanks for what they have done and continue to do, by awarding them as Witnesses of Popular Culture and Tradition.

Giuliano Valter, Songs, Poets, Pupi and Tarante. Meetings with Witnesses of Popular Culture