TERRASINI 4/5 APRIL
On the 4th and 5th April 2014, after the event in Partinico, the GAL InContraDanza itinerant celebration stopped over in Terrasini.
The town of Terrasini, lying in the worderful Gulf of Castellammare, welcame visitors by a schedule full of emotions coinciding with Easter celebrations and its traditional Festa di li Schietti (Bachelors’ Festival). On the 4th of April at 14h00 celebration started with Sicilian cart parade organized by the association “The knights in the Myth and in the History”. The Myth and the History liked to the art of the production of the Sicilian carts paraded in the town centre accompanied by a galaxy of colours and sounds.
On the 5th of April, from 10h00 to 12h00, visitors were able to see the heritage in the Museo Regionale di Palazzo D'Aumale (D’Aumale Palace Regional Museum). The Museum of Natural History and permanent exhibition of the Sicilian cart is hosted in the D’Aumale Palace: a wonderful nineteenth-century building on the seafront of Terrasini. The Museum hosts a remarkable Archeological, Naturalistic and Etno-anthropological heritage. In the evening, at the 18.30, the “Il Ballo dei Pastori” band performed the captivating rhythm of the contradanza dance during the farmer happy hour organized by A.P.A.S. association (Association of Sicilian Farmers). This tasting of excellent local wine and food products let visitors discover territory cookery.
In the night, in the evocative Duomo Square concerts of "Alfio Antico Trio" at 21h30 and of "Mario Incudine Band" at 22h30, took place enchanting visitors by an artistic and cultural bond between past and future, tradition and innovation.
MUSIC
TASTE
TERRITORY
TRADIZION
The images of the event Terrasini, 4/5 April 2015
Music, Taste and Territory in the Gulf of Castellammare
MUSIC IN TERRASINI
ALFIO ANTICO TRIO
Its show is focused on the charisma of Alfio Antico, accompanied by two musicians (bass, various ethnical instruments, jew's harp).
It is a dynamic show, in which the moments of soloist virtuosity of the Master are accompanied by the harmony of the jazz bass player, Amedeo Ronga, famous at national level, and by the surprise multi-instrumental performance by Puccio Castrogiovanni (Lautari), ancient collaborator of the Master.
Alfio Antico: voice, frame drums, bells
Amedeo Ronga: Bass
Puccio Castrogiovanni: guitars, electric mandolin, bouzouki, mandola , jew's harps,
choirs: trio
Alfio lived until the age of 18 years as a shepherd in the inland mountains in Syracuse and breathing, in a life not without some hardship, the fairy tales, the stories and the myths of rural culture. The sounds of 600 bells of his flock; grandmother who with her own magical tambourine chasing away the monsters of loneliness and fear, when he was a child; his first musical experiences in the streets of big cities until the meeting with the most famous musicians and theater people of the great Italian tradition made Alfio Antico an artist who has reached full maturity.
Alfio has more than seventy drums, all manufactured by himself and beautifully carved with images of rustic gods, antique signs that enclose an eternal wisdom. Through rhythm and song, Alfio Antico sculpts the many figures of the time. "I am the drum," he whispers in perfect symbiosis with his instrument, meaning a mystical unity between the living skin of his hand and the dead and ancient one, fixed to a sieve grain, which back to life playing love stories and poems. The personality must be understood from his path, which begins on the remotest and sunny Sicilian hills; land of harsh contrasts, of good and evil, of emotions and feelings that leave their mark, like in all the borderlands.
Then he moved to the continent, in Florence, then certainly the most welcoming and wonderful container to fill with sounds, and here he found surprise. Florence hosted many students and workers from Salento, Sardinia, Calabria, Sicily: all of them met on the steps of the Lanzi, in Signoria Square. This environment poor in money but rich in imputs, was the fertile womb of rebirth of Alfio Antico; then contacts and collaborations with great artists of music and theater (Eugene Jackson, Fabrizio De Andrè, Lucio Dalla, Giorgio Albertazzi, Amedeo Amodio, Vinicio Capossela, Carmen Consoli) make him the eclectic artist he is today: music, presence, gestures; sublime mastery and virtuosity.
In his hands, the drum expresses inconceivable sounds, that make us understand the infinite resources of this simple instrument. Alfio adds his poetic vein, expressed in the language he best know, the Sicilian one; its natural theatricality is explosive. In music Alfio collaborated with many artists, including Musicanova, Edward Jackson, Vincenzo Spampinato, Lucio Dalla, Fabrizio De Andrè, Carmen Consoli, Vinicio Capossela, Peppe Barra, Renzo Arbore, Roy Paci, I Lautari, Gianni Perilli, Piero Ricci and Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare.
MARIO INCUDINE
"The energy of culture entrenched in the depth of the times and in the ways of the interior life even in the chaos of mediocrity knows how to emerge and find voices and interpreters. For us listening to Mario Incudine, the color of his voice, his style of interpretation and his vocal gesture condenses and distills the art and the knowledge of a tradition, the strength of a culture, the sounds blowing colors of a language that exudes humor, colors, ironies, the privilege of contamination of an ancient welcoming, solar and tragic land, full of afflicted humanity, consumed by struggles, scattered in exile, exiled in his farms." Moni Ovadia.
These words by Moni Ovadia introduce us to the music of Mario Incudine.
Singer, actor, researcher, musician and soundtracks composer, Mario Incudine is one of the most representative personality of the new Italian world music. He collaborated with many artists and his artistic repertoire is versatile as well as his vocation.
TERRASINI TASTE
The wine and food products can be considered as a synthesis of a manufacturing process completely based on the local resources and connecting the product directly to the territory. Concerning this, besides local row materials, also climate features, landscape, historical and cultural factors, customs, ancient professions, races bred, vegetables cultivated, places and ways of making contribute to lend these local delights unique organoleptic characteristics, which cannot be reproduced outside their provenance.
In Terrasini the territory gastronomy is connected to the prosperous production of the local countryside (grapes, citrus fruits, olives, etc.,) and to recipes (cannoli, beans maccu, etc.) of Sicilian culture, while the sea gastronomy expressed in an extraordinary variety of seafood, both raw and cooked, recalls the particular vocation of the Town for the fisheries.
Attending a concert of his is an invitation to open your eyes and admire, wonder, but above all become aware of reality and wake up from sleep. In a light and shadow jigsaw, his new musical project "Italia talìa" (Italy watches), consisting in 13 tracks, has been produced by Mario Saroglia and Kaballà. It tells stories of our time with an addictive rhythm and capable of making whole squares dance. Not to mention the political and civic impact that his music inspires. He addresses hot topics using the language of multiethnic solidarity and expresses the thoughts tormenting him and the hopes heartening him through a vivid music.
TERRITORY OF TERRASINI
The municipality of Terrasini overlooks the Gulf of Castellammare: the city extends on a flat land, bathed in the North by the sea and surrounded by hills and mountains.
Its coast is characterized by alternating of rocky coves and steep cliffs on the sea; It extends from the beach of Ciucca to the beach of San Cataldo.
According to historian Gioacchino Di Marzo, the toponym Terrasini derives from Capo Rama, that, with its opposite, Capo San Vito, forms the Gulf of Castellammare, in the past called "sinus aegestanus". The territory then began to be called “terra sinus”, land of the gulf. According another interpretation, maybe better than the first, Terrasini derives from terra sinorum, land of inlets, because of its sinuous and jagged coast, rich in docks and natural caves, which lies between the shore of Ciucca and the beach of San Cataldo.
During the Middle Age, the small feudal village was acquired by the monastery of San Martino and later passed the noble La Grua – Talamanca family, princes of Carini. They built the eighteenth-century castle, now the city hall, and Palazzo Cataldi, today seat of the prestigious "Claudio Catalfio" library.
The local economy is based on the cultivation of citrus fruits, grapes, olives and almond trees. Very relevant is the fishery production thanks to the presence of numerous fish varieties. The most common handcrafted products are the so-called quartare, clay amphoras.
ART AND MONUMENTS
Regional Inter-disciplinary Museum of Natural History and permanent exhibition of the Sicilian cart of Terrasini
D'Aumale Palace, seat of the Museum, is located on the seafront of Terrasini. The nineteenth-century building was commissioned by the Prince of Partanna and Duke of Floridia, Don Vincenzo Grifeo, and later acquired by the Duke D’ Aumale, son of Louis Philippe, king of France and Maria Amelia de Bourbon, with the aim to use it as warehouses for storing wine, the Duke produced on his farm of Zucco, not far from Terrasini.
The Museum has a considerable heritage composed of the ethnographic collections (carts, model boats, tangible heritage) and of natural history collections (paleontological, malacological, entomological, ornithological and mammals ones) for a long time acquired to the Regional public property, as well as of archaeological marine and land finds found during the excavations in the area. So this is a multidisciplinary museum divided into three technical sections: archaeological sec, ethno-anthropological, naturalistic section, the latter comprising a sector of geographical paleontology.
Among the main objectives of the Museum there is the promotion of culture to be implemented through the development, dissemination and use of local heritage.
TRADITION OF TERRASINI
THE FESTA DI LI SCHETTI
Every year in Terrasini, one of the most unique folk festivals of Sicily takes place, it is la festa di li schetti (Bachelors’ festival).
This event, which involves the whole town and attracts hundreds of tourists, has a tree as its undisputed star.
The cult of the tree is a constant of human religiosity, as it is a symbol of life and fertility, resurrection of the vegetation, as well as the revival of life that overcomes death.
The cutting of the tree symbolizes the death of vegetation, but when the tree becomes the focus of celebration, being carried around, it simulates the revival of vegetation.
Historically, the birth of the festa di li schetti is dated back to the years 1850-1860, but its origins are undoubtedly much older. During the Saracen period, indeed, to achieve a lady, knights competed in the lifting of a tree to show their physical strength and, as a consequence, to be able to maintain a family. The origin of the festival is also connected to the joy to celebrate the awakening of nature during spring season, what shows its primarily rural nature.
The festival takes place in Terrasini during the Easter period. Main protagonists of the event are the bachelors of the town, the schetti, competing in a peculiar contest consisting in lifting a tree of bitter orange, weighing about 50 kg and adorned with trinkets and ribbons, with only one arm.
Young bachelors wear typical costumes, inspired by those used in the Agrigento province in ancient times. Such costumes include black trousers and velvet vest, white shirt, red scarf, red pompons acting as a neck-tie, and finally a red cap.
The authenticity of the celebration is guaranteed by the ceremony “of the cutting” and by the sacrifice of the ram. In this way a banquet is prepared and all are invited to participate in the traditional "manciata" (meal) with mutton meat and roasted sardines and a good local wine.
SICILIAN CARTS
Sicilian carts symbolize history and myth in Sicilian folklore, from the eighteenth century they come to us accompanied by the tinkling of their bells and the singing of their carter.
The carradori (cart builders) were skilled craftsmen, who built these carts which were pulled by draft animals and used for transportation of various foodstuffs and of building materials.
Composed of the trunk, the wheels and the load floor and consisting of wooden boards mounted on the transverse beams, the carts are the wonderful product of the collaboration between the various artisans, such as: u firraru, metalworker, which carried all iron parties forming the structure of the wagon, including the cascia ri fusu, a wrought-iron structure that connected the wheel axle to the bottom of the trunk, the latter made of spruce wood and buckle, typical mechanism of bronze, attached to the wheels handcart and producing a characteristic sound with movement; u siddaru, who saddled and dressed up the draft animal, with ornaments, ribbons, bells, mirrors, leather harnesses decorated with plaques, golden nails and plumes, generally red and yellow, which are the colors of Sicily; u ferrascecchi, who took care of shoeing the horse once a month. Then, carvers, decorated with paintings and engravings both the sides, called masciddari and made of walnut wood, and the spokes made of ash wood, so that they were the most beautiful and valuable as manifest the importance of the owner.
The variety of images, paintings and carvings, which make the carts true artworks in motion, are inspired by the Holy Virgin, the Saints, but also by life of common people and of sovereigns. The carts also represent episodes from romances connected to the work of the Sicilian puppets and to historical facts as the battles of Napoleon I and the Crusades.
The types of Sicilian cart are four: from Palermo one, from Trapani one, with larger wheels, and from Castelvetrano and, finally, from Catania one, generally smaller in size than the others.
