Finis terrae: butō e tarantismo Salentino. Due culture coreutiche a confronto nell’era intermediale

In this study I would like to build a cultural bridge between Akita and Salento, discussing two representative phenomena of their cultural identity. Although a comparison seems to be impossible, I would like to observe some characteristics of the Japanese avant-guard dance ankoku butō and the dance of Tarantism in South Italy. Butō’s debut was in 1959 with Kinjiki choreographed by Hijikata Tatsumi. The origins of Tarantism, developed between the IX and XIV century in Apulia and practiced until the 1970s in Salento, are not clear, but are thought to date back to the ancient Greek culture. Gunji Masakatsu treats Hijikata’s dance in relation to the minzokugeinō and the yamabushi kagura, illustrating the connections between ritual and the avant-guard performance. The critic points at ankoku butō as a dance of Death, as rooted in Tōhoku tradition, and argues that butō reminds the Dance of Death propagated throughout Europe during the Medieval period. Notwithstanding the cultural and phenomenical distance between the two body expressions, their similarities show the way human beings reflect themselves into dance culture.