
Baroque Dreaming Into Contemporary Opera
- Music
Mysticism, Feminism, and the Power of Nature
View details about the event: Baroque Dreaming Into Contemporary OperaA Documentary by Alessandra Belloni
Overview
World Premiere Screening
Musical Journeys with the Black Madonna in Southern Italy
(2025, Italy/USA, 60 min.)
In ENGLISH
A documentary written and produced by
Alessandra Belloni
Directed and edited by
Francesco Piccolo
Scored by
Alessandra Belloni and John La Barbera
Made possible with funding by
NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò
A documentary based on the best-selling book Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna (Inner Traditions | Bear and Company, 2019) by award-winning singer, percussionist, teacher and author Alessandra Belloni.
Followed by a live concert by
I Giullari di Piazza
Alessandra Belloni, Artistic Director
John La Barbera, Music Director
With:
Joe Deninzon, violin, mandolin, and vocals
Mara Gerety, violin and vocals
Joseph Giannini, vocals, accordion and tambourine
Peter de Geronimo, dancer
The concert will feature Southern Italian folk music and dances featured in the film, including the traditional drumming and dance of the Tammorriata in honor of the Black Madonna, sacred chants for the Black Madonna from the regions of Campania & Sicily, Sicilian tarantellas, Neapolitan love songs and original compositions by John La Barbera and Alessandra Belloni featured in their opera ‘THE VOYAGE OF THE BLACK MADONNA’ (Premiered at Cathedral of St John the Divine in 1991)
ABOUT THE FILM
This documentary takes us on a mystical journey of initiation, transformation, and empowerment with award-winning musician and author Alessandra Belloni as she unveils the secret healing powers of the musical traditions of the Black Madonna in Southern Italy. In footage never before seen outside of Italy, the film immerses viewers in a world of ritual and magic where ecstatic devotional music and dance powerfully transform and heal the heart and soul throughout the beautiful land once known as Magna Grecia.
The film reveals this devotion in all its vibrant complexity as a living descendant of ancient women’s wisdom traditions and the veneration of mother goddesses.
We follow a series of musical pilgrimages that Belloni leads each summer to the Southern Italian regions of Campania and Sicily, visiting the sacred sites of the Black Madonnas known to local folklore as the “Seven Sisters.” It is an intimate and participatory journey, with the camera closely following Belloni and her students as they learn and perform the music and dances associated with each Madonna, taking part in the feast-day celebrations and experiencing their power and mystery in the first person. It also features workshops of ritual drumming and dance featuring authentic tarantella and tammurriata in the region of Campania, led by Belloni and featuring guest artist Nando Citarella on percussion and vocals.
The film includes footage of the rituals never before seen outside of Italy, as well as archival footage collected over Belloni’s forty years of fieldwork, offering a global audience intimate access to this little-known ancient tradition.
Belloni guides us as the viewers as she leads her students on this pilgrimage, teaching chants, drum rhythms, and dances. She also interviews local devotees and introduces expert demonstrations from local master folk practitioners dedicated to the preservation and celebration of the Black Madonnas’ ancient devotional music, dance, and local styles of tarantellas.
The pilgrims’ journey takes us to Sicily, where the beautiful icon of the Madonna del Tindari is the oldest known example of a Black Madonna, inscribed with the phrase nigra sum sed formosa – “I am black and comely”, a line from the Song of Solomon.
The Madonna Nera di Milazzo keeps watch over the local fisherman in a beautiful church by the sea, and we experience the visceral power of dance and drumming on the slopes of Mount Etna during the Feast of the Tarantati.
In Campania, we visit the Madonna della Neve and attend her feast-day celebrations that reenact the discovery of her statue in the sea, and the Byzantine icon of the Madonna di Positano who was once syncretically worshipped as the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The powerful rhythm of the tammurriata dance resounds for the Madonna di Montevergine on the site of an ancient temple of the mother goddess Cybele, long seen as a protector of LGBTQ+ people. And we experience the authentic tradition of the Madonna dell’Avvocata in Tramonti on the Amalfi Coast with tammorriata master Isidoro Caso in a great feast of food, wine and dance.
And near Benevento, where the cult of the goddess Isis had its seat in ancient Magna Graecia, the sanctuary of the Madonna di Moiano is home to an emotionally intense ritual long contested by the Vatican. Here we listen to haunting women’s voices who carry on the ancient tradition of chanting for the Black Madonna in close, dissonant harmonies.
The traditions of the Black Madonna are often invoked by marginalized communities, and are connected to liberation from fear and protection from plague and suffering. Their frequent African and Eastern roots speak to the interconnectedness of our world and the universality of the human experience of the sacred, and challenge hegemonic and Eurocentric beliefs.
Writer and producer Belloni states: “My intention with this new film is to bring to life the authentic rituals in the South of Italy and show how the Black Madonna is still alive today. The music will bring the audience to remote areas where she has been worshipped for thousands of years, with ritual drumming, haunting chants, and sensual trance dances with deep African roots. The Black Madonna represents the Earth Mother as a living being. Like the earth’s womb, women’s wombs have often been traumatized and their souls damaged. I strongly believe that in this time of turmoil and paradigm shifts, there is a great need for a compelling documentary with a strong message about the Black Madonna. We live in a dangerous time where both women and men need to connect with the true knowledge and healing aspect of the Great Universal Mother.”