Southern Italian and Sicilian
Drum, Song, Dance Lessons
I offer individual and small group online or in-person sessions for folks that want to learn to drum, sing, and dance in the musical traditions of Southern Italy and Sicily, including regional varieties of tarantella, such as the Tammurriata of Campania, the Pizzica of Puglia, and the Sicilian Tarantella.
Macaroni Music
I am a part of a diasporic collective who are generating co-learning spaces for this ancestral music, affectionately called “Macaroni Music”. This was seeded in Bulbancha (colonially known as New Orleans) at an altar-building gathering for San Giuseppe in March 2024.
We come from many regions across the US, practice together online, and then gather for regional Festas when we are able. We humbly find our way in honoring the traditions of our Ancestors, while acknowledging that they will necessarily be interpreted through our unique, authentic lens as diaspora on Turtle Island. We grapple together with the questions of how to reclaim and re-weave together what was lost through assimilation, while contributing to wider movements of solidarity with marginalized communities experiencing ongoing cultural erasure and genocide.
If you want to get involved, send me an email: mandorlaarts@gmail.com.
My Journey with the Drum
In 2008, I began a descent journey of personal healing. This underworld immersion of reclamation and retrieval took place inside of women’s circles using modalities such as trauma and resiliency informed somatics, embodiment practices, shadow work, authentic movement, co-counseling, herbcrafting, ceremony, lots of singing and tending to grief. Within these dedicated practice spaces where it was safe enough to feel, bear witness, and heal, I realized that much of what I carried didn’t begin with me, but was handed to me by my ancestors. They gave me their unhealed storylines, and they also gave me gifts. As I companioned others through their anguished and transformative passages, I discovered how powerful rhythmic soundspace can be in facilitating such deep processes. I discovered I had a knack for it, and I went seeking my ancestral rhythms to do this.
In 2012, I had my first return trip to my ancestral lands of Italy. I attended Alessandra Belloni’s Rhythm Is the Cure: Healing Drum and Dance Intensive, in Florence, Italy. I learned the Southern Italian Tarantellas, the Pizzica, the Tammurriata rhythms and dances.
From 2019-2022, I took weekly online drumming classes with Alessandra, and at times would substitute for her and teach her beginner’s classes.
Within this time, I also took online courses from Barbara Crescimanno.
In 2022, I traveled to my ancestral Motherland, Sicily! I visited the villages where my grandparents were from, met cousins, and did an intensive 6-week study with Barbara Crescimanno at Arci Tavola Tonda in Palermo. I was able to deepen in my understanding of Southern Italian Rhythms and dances, but also focus the Sicilian techniques.
In October 2023, I completed an intensive training with Andrea Piccioni and Livia Giafredda in Tuscany, training further in Southern Italian traditional rhythm, dance, and vocalizations.
In September 2025, I attended La Danza International Residency in Galatina, Puglia with Rosa Voto and Kate Causbie, and many of the local custodians and researchers of the Pizzica, rooted in that region.
I have an ongoing study relationship with Barbara, while I offer foundations lessons to folks in the States. I try to travel back to Sicily every other year for in person immersions.
At this time, I enjoy teaching these rhythms and dances with small groups locally, and I also offer classes online to small groups and individuals.
Alessandra Belloni -
www.alessandrabelloni.com
Barbara Crescimanno - https://www.tavolatonda.org/index.php/en/
Andrea Piccioni - https://www.andreapiccioni.net/
Livia Giafredda - https://www.instagram.com/liviagiaffreda/
Rosa Voto - https://www.melbourneschooloftarantella.com/
La Danza International Residency - https://www.ladanzaresidency.com/
I hope our Ancestors dance and drum and sing with us, and help us re-member the rhythmic medicine of each of our own lineages, so over time we can learn to weave them together, dancing difference into harmony.
To learn more about the ancient roots of women’s relationship to time, rhythm, drum, song dance and devotion, and what menstruation has to do with it, as is revealed in the anthropological record of Southern Europe, the Fertile Crescent and Northern Africa watch these videos created by Barbara Crescimanno.
1. the origins of the rhythm and 2. iconography of the frame drum
It is in Italian with English subtitles. (If subtitles are not showing up, click on “Closed Caption” / ‘CC’ and then click on “English”)
https://vimeo.com/showcase/8179811
To study drumming in the Southern Italian Musica Populare and devotional traditions check out Alessandra Belloni’s incredible body of work.
www.alessandrabelloni.com
or check out Layne Redmond’s book. “ When the Women Were Drummers”.
Tarantellas of Southern Italy
Ancestral Retrieval
I follow the threads
Unraveling, Re-Weaving
With the Living and the Dead
Spider Rhythms open doors
We reach for each other
Healing Backwards, Creating Forwards
-Nikole