«Generation tarantella» is the slogan of the XXVI Kaulonia Tarantella Festivalone of the most beloved and important festivals of popular music in Italy, which this year wants to focus especially on young people who grew up in the area. “The 2024 edition, which will take place from 21 to 24 August, was born thanks to a project undertaken with Maestro Mimmo Cavallaro. It is an event on popular tradition in the beautiful setting of the historic center”, declared the Councilor for Culture of Caulonia, Antonella Ierace, at the press conference which was also attended by the mayor Franco Cagliuso, the artistic director Mimmo Cavallaro, the presenter Marco Mauro and the regional councilor Salvatore Cirillo.
Ierace also thanked the Deputy Mayor of the Metropolitan City, Carmelo Versace, for the important support to the event, as a historic event.
The Kaulonia Tarantella Festival 2024 It will be structured in the usual formula of courses and seminars free afternoon sessions dedicated to the popular instruments and dances of the South: not only the Calabrian tarantella, but also the Apulian pizzica and the Neapolitan tammurriata.
In the early evening, at the Affresco Bizantino, there will be cultural insights, precious gems of the event that will see the presence of true talents such as Federica Greco, Alessandra Colucci and Serena Lionetto with songs, sounds and colours of world music.
Also present will be the storyteller Francesca Prestia, who in her artistic career has given voice to women like Lea Garofalo, a victim of the mafia, and has not forgotten her social commitment, also demonstrated by songs like «Riace forever» in which she defended Mimmo Lucano’s model of hospitality.
In this context, reflections with Pino Aprile on the musical path from tarantella to jazz and with Renato Caruso on the Pythagorean philosophy that has influenced music so much with a particular focus on the lyre will be important. Also of great importance is the intervention of Alessandro Santacaterina, virtuoso of the chitarra battente.
The concerts in Piazza Mese, scheduled for the late evening, will open on the 21st with Mimmo Cavallaro’s new musical project, «Mirju», and over the course of the four days will feature, among other groups, the Faber Quartet, Serena Brancale, Gipsy King Pablo Reyas and Enzo Avitabile. Among these, the new project Etni-Dub by Ettore Castagna, one of the most authoritative scholars of the Calabrian musical tradition, deserves to be mentioned. In the 1980s, together with a group of colleagues, he brought the Calabrian lyre back to light, also preserving its traditional sound with recordings of the musicians who were alive at the time.
Every night until dawn, in a more isolated open space in the town, u Speruni, the dancing will continue to the rhythm of the Tarantella No Stop.