The Happy Pod: International Dance Day special

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Speaker 8 Welcome to a special edition of the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 8 I'm Valerie Sanderson and we're celebrating International Dance Day, hearing the stories of dancers and choreographers from across the world, like Roman Alexiv.

Speaker 9 He proved doctors wrong. They said that he couldn't walk.
He started dancing again. His strength is unimaginable.
He's a really, really strong person.

Speaker 8 The ballroom dancer who survived a rocket attack then had a film made about his dancing and his perseverance.

Speaker 5 You can mimic a butterfly. You can squat and flail your arms like a chicken.
People are like, cool, that looks amazing. You know, it's just anything goes.

Speaker 8 The Vietnamese culture of dancing into the wee small hours.

Speaker 11 The moment we found out everyone was very excited, we were all thrilled. At that very moment, we created a new Guinness World Record exclusive to street dance.

Speaker 8 Plus, we hear about people breaking world records in dance.

Speaker 8 We're here in the foyer at the Royal Opera House in London, home of the Royal Ballet. Hundreds of thousands of people come through the doors every year to watch the performances staged here.

Speaker 8 International Dance Day has been celebrated for more than 40 years and around the world events are put on to celebrate all forms of dance, raise awareness of its value and encourage those who are new to it to give dancing a try.

Speaker 8 Created by the International Theatre Institute, every year the organisation selects an outstanding dance personality to write a message to mark the day.

Speaker 8 We voice the message this year from the Latvian-American dancer and choreographer Mikhail Pryshnikov.

Speaker 13 It's often said that dance can express the unspeakable. Joy, grief and despair become visible.
Embodied expressions of our shared fragility.

Speaker 13 In this dance can awaken empathy, inspire kindness and spark a desire to heal rather than harm.

Speaker 13 Especially now as hundreds of thousands endure war, navigate political upheaval and the rise in protests against injustice, honest reflection is vital.

Speaker 8 I asked the director of the Royal Ballet, Kevin O'Hare, why the Royal Opera House is so significant across the world.

Speaker 14 I think it's a brilliant coming together of dancers from around the world, all nationalities, across the country of course, across Great Britain.

Speaker 14 And they all come with one common purpose and that is to transform their lives but also transforming the audience's lives that come to see us.

Speaker 8 And what are you trying to achieve through your repertoire?

Speaker 14 Really, to show how broad

Speaker 14 a style of dance ballet can be. On any week, you can come and see the Royal Ballet look very, very different.
And I think that's wonderful.

Speaker 14 It's wonderful for the dancers, but it's also wonderful for the audiences to find ballets that can make them think, can make them feel joy, and then can make them feel awe at the amazing physicality and breadth of emotion that dance can bring.

Speaker 8 And when other dance companies look to the ballet here at the Royal Opera House, I mean what do you think you represent?

Speaker 14 I hope we represent the best of what is a ballet is about and you know I've had a lot of people coming to me from different companies around the world and they're so thrilled that we're now called the Royal Ballet and Opera because ballet has always maybe taken a back seat in the promotion around the world in big opera houses.

Speaker 8 Now Kevin, you were a dancer. Why do you love dance?

Speaker 14 I think there's, of course I would say, but there's nothing like it.

Speaker 14 It's so expressive and can tell you so much in one single movement and come to the core of humanity in a way of how you're feeling, whether it's joy, whether it's sadness, whether you're elated to be in love or have not found love.

Speaker 14 All those stories that we tell, but also dance to me gets to the core of what life is about, and it's so life-affirming when you come to watch it.

Speaker 14 The other side to it is that it just feels good to dance, and we all do it.

Speaker 14 I do it in the corridors when nobody's looking because I've got the world's best dancers around me, but we all do it whether it's in the kitchen, or whether it's in the corridors, or whether it's waiting for the lift.

Speaker 14 But I think it just makes you feel good.

Speaker 8 Kevin O'Hare.

Speaker 8 I asked visitors here at the Royal Opera House what dance means to them. It's the magic, the costumes, the music, the movement,

Speaker 8 just the whole thing. It's just wonderful.

Speaker 15 My daughter, but she doesn't speak well English is a dancer.

Speaker 15 When she dances she feels free.

Speaker 18 If you don't know anything about dance you can still appreciate it because it's non-language. It's about people moving.

Speaker 3 I'm always in awe about about how people can move so fluently.

Speaker 8 I guess it's something that brings you all together. You can understand ballet wherever you come from.

Speaker 8 That grace and that beauty is still there.

Speaker 21 Whether you're from the Far East, America, Australia,

Speaker 8 it still comes over the same to everyone.

Speaker 18 I think when people see ballet for the first time, they're staggered,

Speaker 18 without any doubt, and they think, why haven't I done it before?

Speaker 8 Now, the story of a young Ukrainian boy whose love of ballroom dancing continued despite the ongoing war in his country.

Speaker 8 Eight-year-old Roman Alexey was badly injured in a Russian missile strike in 2022. Doctors said he'd never walk again, but he vowed he would dance.

Speaker 24 Dancing is a therapy for my leg, and also for my hand sometimes. And it's dancing that develops me a little.
If I just went to therapy, I would sit and think, ah, this is therapy. This is this.

Speaker 24 This is that.

Speaker 24 But when I dance, I enjoy it.

Speaker 24 I don't try to boast or anything. I just live like a simple person.

Speaker 24 And I'm like, well, okay, I've been through something like this.

Speaker 24 I just do what I enjoy.

Speaker 24 I would say that firstly, you shouldn't give up. At first, a lot of the time, it doesn't work out.
But you have to try once, twice, three times, ten times,

Speaker 24 and try until you succeed. And you don't have to rush, show off, boast, or anything.
Just learn slowly, step by step.

Speaker 8 Roman's story has been turned into an award-winning short film about his recovery and his attempts to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional ballroom dancer.

Speaker 8 The film is called Romchik, Roman's nickname. It won an award at the Cambria Film Festival in California and has been entered into other international film festivals.

Speaker 8 Anna Murphy spoke to Konstantin Vinenko, the film's producer, and to Ilya Bonderenko, who stars as Roman.

Speaker 25 I remember I first time saw this story in one of the media, like some article, and I was deeply impressed and moved by this story. I felt like his story must be told worldwide.

Speaker 26 And Elia, what was it like for you on set?

Speaker 9 I had a lot of emotions because I knew what the story is about and I know how much I need to work and like how much what emotions I need to have and as well as I not crying sad because it was really hard because Roman lost his mother, he survived such a

Speaker 9 so many burns, he survived so many accidents, therefore he kept on going so I knew I had a big responsibility.

Speaker 26 What parts of the character did you most connect with?

Speaker 9 Perseverance because he proved doctors wrong. They said that he couldn't walk but he proved him wrong.
He started dancing again. His strength is unimaginable.
He's really really strong person.

Speaker 26 Konstantin, what were you hoping that people would take away from the film?

Speaker 25 I hope that Romchik first of all inspires people to see to see the incredible strength of children and power of dreams.

Speaker 25 I would say that I want that audience to walk away feeling not just empathy for Roma's journey but also

Speaker 25 admiration for his courage.

Speaker 25 And yeah, they hope it serves a reminder that war affects innocent lives.

Speaker 26 And have you had any response from Roman or his family?

Speaker 25 Roman's father called me and he said, we watch it like five times. Thank you very much.
It's incredible. The film is really very powerful.

Speaker 25 So yeah, for me it was probably the biggest award to hear such good words about the film because it was very personal story and very sensitive topic and of course when we work on this film we always thinking that the real boy and the father they will see this film and for them it's not just the film it's the story of their life.

Speaker 26 In the film there's quite a lot of dance scenes and scenes where we see Iliao Roman dancing. Why did you want to include so much of that?

Speaker 25 I would say dance is a like universal language. It expresses emotions that words sometimes cannot.
And for Roma, dance was a way to heal and to find the joy again

Speaker 25 and probably to reclaim a part of his childhood that war tried to take from him.

Speaker 9 It shows like how at the beginning of the film he danced, at the end of the film he danced. He always danced because that's his dream and he wants to follow it and he keeps on going.

Speaker 9 And like through the dance he shows his emotions.

Speaker 25 like when he dances in the park you can just see the pure happiness without the words when he dances with his mother we had one interview with roman alexia and we asked him what do you feel when you're dancing his answer was you know like very simple and powerful he said because when i'm dancing i feel like i'm flying

Speaker 8 Konstantin Benjenko and Ilya Ponderenko.

Speaker 8 Throughout this podcast, we'll also be hearing from other other professionals we've been speaking to.

Speaker 8 We're calling it Dancers on a Postcard with their own personal stories of why they pursued dance as a career.

Speaker 8 Lillian Banks is a proud Yawaru woman and storyteller, having choreographed original works at the Bangora Dance Theatre in Australia, a company of professional Indigenous performers.

Speaker 23 Growing up in a small town surrounded by culture, surrounded by family, you don't realise the importance of it when you're at home until you actually leave.

Speaker 23 You know, once I started dance, you just realize the importance of who you are, where you come from, because that is you in the world. And yeah, in 2018, joined Bengara.

Speaker 23 We do Indigenous contemporary, so it is contemporary, but the Indigenous is our history and our stories. So it's pretty much, yeah, telling our history in a dance form.

Speaker 23 It's more grounded, and I guess most of our movements come from the inside. It's very spiritually strong.

Speaker 23 My mum's an Indigenous artist, and I've always dreamt of, you know, having a collaboration with mum. I always wanted to do, like, you know, dance, danceware with Indigenous culture on it.

Speaker 23 So having this opportunity, I was able to bring mum on board and have her designs on the dancers' costumes, which was really beautiful.

Speaker 8 Lillian Banks.

Speaker 8 In many countries, dancing is of cultural significance, of course. For many, in Vietnam, it's part of everyday life.

Speaker 8 There, it's not uncommon to see people out in public at the crack of dawn, just dancing. The BBC's William Lee Adams has been to Vietnam and spoke to Holly Gibbs.

Speaker 5 You see people dancing outside everywhere you go, particularly around big lakes and in public parks. So in Hanoi, the centerpiece of the city is Lake Juan Kium.

Speaker 5 And honestly, from 5 a.m., you have people out there doing yoga, running around, playing with their chihuahuas, and dancing.

Speaker 5 Now, these dance groups, you'll have groups of old ladies dancing to sort of 1980s jazzer size. It's just so warm and inclusive.
And then you have street dance.

Speaker 5 You have troops that perform in theaters, they perform in competitions, but they also just practice on the street.

Speaker 5 And they're interacting with the elderly elderly people who are interacting with the young yoga people who are interacting with the runners. Exercises bringing people together is the point.

Speaker 4 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 28 Music.

Speaker 5 In Vietnam, so much of life is lived outdoors, in the marketplace, on the street. People don't want to be cooped up in their houses.
So they're in the park at 4 a.m., 5 a.m., just hanging out.

Speaker 5 This is where people exchange recipes. This is where people gossip.
I think that freedom is just such a part of Vietnamese culture.

Speaker 22 And it must make people very happy to be free and dancing outside.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 5 The government actually calls public exercise spiritual food, and in that you have to include dance.

Speaker 5 I actually met with the Big Toe crew, that is a street dance group, and I said, why is your name Big Toe? And she said, Miss Mai, the group's leader. She said, well, the Big Toe gives me balance.

Speaker 5 The Big Toe is important. But she told me that parents increasingly see this as something good for their kids.

Speaker 30 Every parent want to bring their kids to dance studio or dance street for joining dancing with the hip-hop crew because they feel like they're so happy and so fun and strong and healthy.

Speaker 5 She actually told me that sometimes her street crew will dance alongside elderly women and they have a great time.

Speaker 30 Yeah, we have sometimes like we go on the on the leg, then we start to dance like this, and every lady,

Speaker 30 yeah, everyone here we do with us. It's an amazing sharing.

Speaker 22 Is dancing outside encouraged in Vietnam?

Speaker 5 Oh, absolutely. There are these billboards all over Hanoi, all over Ho Chi Minh City, really any city in Vietnam.
And they look like propaganda posters.

Speaker 5 They're painted in that socialist, realist style, but they say things like, exercise for the health of your body and your family. The government wants people to move.

Speaker 5 And so you'll see policemen around the lake when people are dancing and they're encouraging it. They're kind of smiling.
They're bopping along. I was out on this lake at 6 a.m.

Speaker 5 with the BBC's travel show. We were filming just to get a sense of the vibe.
And it was not a case of beauty sleep, right? These people were up so early, they were moving for beauty, right?

Speaker 5 They were showing you beauty in motion. It was just so inclusive.

Speaker 22 And do you think that this is something that everybody in every country should do?

Speaker 5 You know, in a world where things are getting more expensive, people are worried about money, I think dancing on the street, exercising in public, this is free for everyone.

Speaker 5 This is the perfect solution to our doldrums. It's a way to snap out of the sadness and get you happy back.

Speaker 5 The Vietnamese I met with told me that they were closed off for decades, and then they found the internet. They saw other people dancing.
They started feeling inspired and made that dancing their own.

Speaker 5 This is already global, and I feel like it can spread even further.

Speaker 8 William Lee Adams speaking there to Holly Gibbs.

Speaker 8 Let's meet our next dancer on a postcard, Santino Morena. He's originally from Italy and now appears on Dancing with the Stars Norway and Let's Dance Sweden.

Speaker 32 It started when I was eight years old. I was living in Sicily, in Italy, and I was playing football.
And then it was one girl that I like so much. She asked me, oh, I need that dance partner.

Speaker 32 Would you like to dance with me? And then I went home and I said to my mom, Mom, I need to start to dance.

Speaker 32 For me, like, dance is like everything. It's kind of a language, a lifestyle, and it's like my biggest passion.
It's like through the dance, I try to

Speaker 32 express myself. process emotion and it's like a way also to connect with the people without words.
So there is like, of course, it's a hard work, full commitment job, but it's really worth it.

Speaker 32 I'm very lucky that I can live with the dancing because I feel like dance allows me to feel very alive and present.

Speaker 32 I think like everyone really should dance every day, that you will have a better day. Advice is really to dare to do it and really go all in.

Speaker 32 It's a new world, it's something very that it makes you a better person, it makes you to communicate with people in a better way.

Speaker 32 because in the beginning it can be a little bit scary, go out from the comfort zone but when you are able to do that then you really can enjoy yourself.

Speaker 8 Santino Morella.

Speaker 8 You're listening to a special edition of the Happy Pod celebrating International Dance Day coming up.

Speaker 19 All the things that you would want and ask for in a student Anthony has in Spades. He's very much a leader in his group.
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Speaker 8 Let's hear now from another one of our global dancers, Luba Mushtuk. Luba was born in Russia and appears on the British TV show Strictly Come Dancing.

Speaker 34 My earliest memory of dance is dancing in my living room with a very big skirt that my grandma made for me.

Speaker 34 I was like two, and then at the age of four, because my brother was teaching me, I started doing competitions. I was one of the youngest ones who did dance competitions in St.
Petersburg.

Speaker 34 Dance means everything to me because it's been 31 years

Speaker 34 me dancing, and it just, I guess, you know, if I really think about it, I think when I dance, it's the only one activity that I do when I'm really in the moment and nothing else exists.

Speaker 34 No troubles, no debits, no bills, no, nothing exists. It's just me expressing myself and discovering artistry through the dance in this particular moment in time.

Speaker 34 It's a very rare and it's a very beautiful feeling that I cherish and I absolutely love.

Speaker 8 Luba Mushtok.

Speaker 8 Last week, more than 7,200 people in the city of Chiang Mai in Thailand set a new Guinness World Record for the most people at a traditional Thai dance.

Speaker 8 It's just the latest dancing record to be broken over the past year. Peter Goffen has been looking at some of the most dazzling dancing feats of the past few months.

Speaker 10 Three,

Speaker 10 two,

Speaker 10 one,

Speaker 10 go!

Speaker 16 Row on row on row of women and girls with golden flowers in their hair filled the streets of Chiang Mai, each of them wearing long brass points on their fingers to perform the phon lep or fingernail dance traditional to Thailand's Lana culture.

Speaker 16 World record attempts like these are offering people around the globe a chance to celebrate their heritage through dance.

Speaker 16 In February, 268 people in Washington set the Guinness World Record for the largest stepping dance.

Speaker 16 That's an art form developed in black university fraternities and sororities in the 20th century, and it still has a major presence on campuses today.

Speaker 16 But it has its roots in West African folk dance, brought to the U.S.

Speaker 16 by enslaved people who clap their hands and stomp their feet to make music at a time when they were banned by slave owners from having instruments like drums. C.

Speaker 16 Brian Williams is the founder of Step Africa, the dance company that set the record.

Speaker 10 The body becomes an instrument. You know, we use our hands, our feet, and our voice to make music together, and it's also a very important way of expressing community.

Speaker 10 So for me, stepping at the very, at its root is a coming together of individuals for a larger purpose.

Speaker 16 Not every record-breaking dance is based in centuries-old tradition. Last year, nearly 700 people in Japan took part in the largest sign language integrated dance lesson.

Speaker 16 And more than 4,000 people in cities across China, most of them kids and teens, set the Guinness record for the largest street dance in multiple venues. Think break dancing, hip-hop, modern styles.

Speaker 16 Wen Yi Jing is the artistic director of Chongsheng's Street Dance Alliance, the organizers.

Speaker 11 The moment we found out that we broke the world record, everyone was very excited.

Speaker 11 We were all thrilled because at that very moment, we created a new Guinness World Record, a record exclusive to street street dance.

Speaker 16 People set world records for all sorts of reasons. To challenge themselves, to put their communities on the map, to chase a bit of fame.

Speaker 16 But these dancers in Chiang Mai and Washington and Changxin are also celebrating who they are and what they love to do. They're dancing like the world is watching.

Speaker 8 Peter Goffen.

Speaker 8 Time for another dancer in a postcard, the ballerina Mayara Magri, who's a principal dancer here at the Royal Ballet.

Speaker 29 I'm originally from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. Started when I was eight.
It was an outreach programme. I have two other sisters, and my parents couldn't pay for training.

Speaker 29 So we found this place that could teach dance for free and managed to get a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School.

Speaker 29 I know I'm so involved in the the ballet that I'm doing, the story that I'm telling.

Speaker 29 Even if it's not a storytelling ballet, I feel like I'm just really committing to the movement and to the music, to the experience, other than actually thinking, Wow, this is this is my theatre, this is my company.

Speaker 29 I feel like maybe think about that afterwards when I can't sleep at night because I'm too hyperactive after a show.

Speaker 8 We also heard from fellow principal dancer Calvin Richardson, who's from Australia.

Speaker 35 I went to a really small ballet school in Morwell, and you know, that sort of classic Billie Elliott story.

Speaker 35 I went with my mum to pick up my sisters from dance class, and then eventually, I think I was about five, I just started joining in.

Speaker 35 I love performing, just the experience of the theatre and performing on stage. That's always been the drive for me, I think.

Speaker 35 But in terms of the experience of dancing itself, I would still describe it as just like a kind of space. And there's a rush and adrenaline, but this feels like

Speaker 35 a stillness in a way, internally. You're just fully connected.

Speaker 8 Four years ago, a video of an 11-year-old boy dancing on the streets of Nigeria went viral.

Speaker 8 Anthony Madhu was filmed turning and leaping in the streets of Lagos and as a result he was offered a place at one of Britain's most prestigious ballet schools.

Speaker 8 Anthony is now a teenager and has been at the school since 2021. Anna Murphy went to his ballet school in Birmingham in central England to see how he's getting on.

Speaker 20 I was five years old when I discovered Bali.

Speaker 20 People think that it's not for boys.

Speaker 8 It's my dream and I have to follow.

Speaker 26 From dancing barefoot in the rain to the classrooms of Elmhurst School, Anthony is pursuing his dream of becoming a dancer. At just 11 years old, he had to find the courage to leave his family behind.

Speaker 10 I'm happy for you, my son.

Speaker 13 Thank you for making me proud.

Speaker 10 And we miss you a lot, thank you.

Speaker 26 And the film by Disney Plus followed his experience of discovering that he had a visual impairment.

Speaker 31 He's been referred to the NHS to a specialist doctor.

Speaker 10 I would be another friend.

Speaker 20 I am.

Speaker 10 Okay.

Speaker 20 I guess there might be a point where I can't be able to kind of like dance.

Speaker 26 He's now been at Elmhurst for four years, and despite his fears about his eyesight, he's still dancing.

Speaker 26 I'm here at one of the many dance lessons he takes every day.

Speaker 26 It's being taught by Alex Harrison, who told me that there's certainly something special about Antony.

Speaker 19 All the things that you would want and ask for in a student, Antony has in Spades.

Speaker 19 Definitely, I think moving away at such a young age and going through some of the things that he's gone through, I think it's probably definitely built his resilience.

Speaker 19 It also inspires the other students. He's very much a leader in his group.
He almost becomes, you know, sometimes I call him like my little ballet master.

Speaker 26 In between the classes, I caught up with Antony and he told me that his favourite way to dance is by just improvising.

Speaker 36 Improvisation does affect whatever mood you're in, because when I'm not feeling it, I don't do a lot. I do mostly like floor work, but when it's like quite a fun class, I'll go down.

Speaker 36 I'm mostly up and doing more jumps and more bigger movements.

Speaker 36 Moving to a different country and trying to make new friends and also

Speaker 36 having to communicate with new people and stuff for me it's really kind of increased my confidence in terms of communicating with people. I used to hate, hate speaking to people.

Speaker 36 I don't know why, I just never liked speaking, but then now I just kind of could.

Speaker 26 Anthony has a few years left in his training here, and his teachers say that his raw talent and resilient character will take him far.

Speaker 8 Anna Murphy talking to Anthony Madhu.

Speaker 8 Our final dancer on a postcard is Shahzad Khosandi from Iran. In her home country, there are many restrictions on women performing.

Speaker 8 But Shahzad co-founded a virtual organization that's sharing Persian dance performances with people around the world.

Speaker 12 It's a virtual platform and we try to bring the dancers from Iran together with Iranian dancers outside of Iran or those who practice Iranian dance together on one platform.

Speaker 12 So that's been helpful to create a virtual international stage. And why is it important to support Persian Iranian dance? And the simple answer is that because there's no support for it in Iran.

Speaker 12 In fact, there are many obstacles and restrictions that make it difficult to continue to develop the art form.

Speaker 12 Seeing all these ridiculous restrictions just kind of fuels that drive to want to do the right thing. I literally feel like I'm defending a defenseless animal.

Speaker 12 Just seeing the beauty in it and this lovely, wonderful and powerful way of expression that's just trying to be stifled.

Speaker 12 It just makes you want to stand up and say, no, no, I'm not letting that happen.

Speaker 8 Shasad Pasandi, and now to the south of Italy, where an age-old dance that once served as a folk remedy now fills town squares with thousands of festival goers.

Speaker 8 The pizzica started as a cure for women bitten by spiders. It's now a feature of the music festival La Notta della Taranta, Carla Conti reports.

Speaker 33 Each summer as the sun sets over the olive groves of Puglia in southern Italy, the sound of tambourines fills the air.

Speaker 33 In town squares and open fields, hundreds of thousands gather for the Notte della Taranta, or the Night of the Tarantula, one of the largest largest music festivals in Europe, to celebrate rhythm, movement, and regional pride.

Speaker 33 One sharp stroke of the tambourine once marked the start of a very different gathering.

Speaker 33 From the early Middle Ages until just a few decades ago, women in the Salento area of Puya experienced sudden bouts of anguish that they believed were caused by the bite of a mythical tarantula.

Speaker 33 Once bitten, the afflicted women, known as tarantade, responded by dancing frenetically to a rapid, rapid, repetitive rhythm known as the pizzica.

Speaker 33 Tambourines, violins, accordions and singers all charged along at around 100 beats per minute, coaxing the women into a trance that would often last three days and three nights, until the spider's poison was believed to have left their bloodstream.

Speaker 33 While the tarantula's bite was symbolic in nature, the pain experienced by the tarantate was far from performative.

Speaker 33 Alessandra Belloni is a percussionist and one of the world's few leading experts on southern Italian folk dances.

Speaker 38 Those people were very poor, so it really was the bite of the spider that they saw because they hallucinated and then would scream, fall back and say, I'm beaten, I need to dance.

Speaker 33 In the 1960s and 70s, Italy underwent rapid modernization, but thanks to field recordings made in the 1950s, many traditional folk songs from Salento were preserved, prompting a group of young locals to revive the pizzica.

Speaker 33 Sandro Capelletto, a music historian, says the dance went through quite the transformation.

Speaker 1 They brought the songs to the stage.

Speaker 1 They sang them in the squares, no longer as a cure for the tarantula's bite or as an expression of pain and poverty, but as an affirmation of their historical identity and of a possible happiness.

Speaker 33 That turning point led to the creation of La Notte della Taranta in the 1990s. The festival travels across the Apollian region before culminating in a final concert in the town of Merpignano.

Speaker 33 For Alessandra Belloni, the healing power of the pizzica hasn't faded with time. It's simply taken on a new form.

Speaker 33 In her workshops around the world, she guides people through the movements once used by the tarantate, helping them release stress and and trauma.

Speaker 38 The first five women I worked with, they all had this kind of problems, either cysts, they couldn't get pregnant. I know today at least seven women who conceived after doing the pizzica with me.

Speaker 38 I know there is a value on this dance and this rhythm.

Speaker 33 Pizzica began as a cure, and for many, it still is: a space to move, to let go, and to celebrate.

Speaker 8 Carla Conte.

Speaker 8 You've been listening to a special edition of The Happy Pod celebrating International Dance Day with me, Valerie Sanderson.

Speaker 8 This edition was produced by Holly Gibbs, Anna Murphy, and Harry Blythe sound design and mixing by Harry Blythe. The editor is Karen Martin.
Until next time, keep dancing and goodbye.

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