Tarantella (a Traditional Italian dance surprisingly topical to this year)

It’s a new Music Class session, a new season, and a new worldwide viral epidemic? I bet the news hasn’t let you forget about the Coronavirus COVID-19, so here’s some happy, dance-your-worries-away stuff to induce a little positivity into this stressful news cycle.

The Song Of This Week is…. Drumroll please…. Tarantella!

What does the Tarantella have to do with the hysteria over Coronavirus? Well, let me explain.

The Tarantella is an upbeat Italian song and dance style characterized by light, quick steps, and tambourine-playing (note how we use wrist bells in class to mimic this!) The name “Tarantella" is believed to come from the disease “Tarantism” – a form of hysteria induced by the bite of a Tarantula spider. On the island of Taranto. And the only way to cure the disease is frenzied dancing. You read that right. Tarantella comes from Tarantism - where a Tarantula bites you on the island of Taranto and then you have to dance with Tambourines.

This folklore seems to not only be a hilarious situation to imagine, and some A+ alliteration, but also a positive prescription for dealing with being stuck indoors with small children for weeks on end. How about some fun, frenzied dancing to tucker everyone out and learn a little about traditional Italian music and dance at the same time!?

In Atlanta, we’ve been making videos to try and do exactly that for our thousands of Music Class families stuck at home in China. Check out the awesome Fox 5 Atlanta news coverage for clips of families watching these videos and then doing the songs at home with their kids!

And here is a video of us actually dancing the Tarantella in our China filming class. Please enjoy me trying to lead the song using my limited Chinese to a group of English-speaking families which has been hilarious and fun in its own right.
And don’t forget to dance the hysteria away! 加油！