St. Vitus Dance – what does it conjure up in your musical mind? Probably visions of doom-metal bands, either the original gloom merchants Black Sabbath, or various Scandinavian cardboard copycats. Maybe it’s the medieval buzz, and visions of Brueghel, but the title always brought to mind frigid northern metal more than anything else.

How wrong can you be, though. The St. Vitus Dance – il ballo di San Vito – is hot, hot, hot, and belongs , as this song puts it ‘in southern soil, the land where the land finishes’ (‘terra di sud,  terra dov’e finisce la terra’). 

Stick on the song, and let’s wander back in time to the middle ages in Southern Italy, to a time when horizons were limited and where suspicions were always high. In a number of cities small outbursts of ‘hysterical’ dancing were observed unkindly by the clerics – hipshakes have always been frowned upon by Mother Church.

Different theories abounded as to the cause of the mania – the theory that gave the dance its local name, the tarantella, was based on the idea that it was as a type of poisoning caused by the bite of the tarantula. Others presumed that the dance in fact developed as a way to avoid being bitten by a tarantula. Either way, it got your mojo working.

Against the idea that the collective dance was caused by a spider was the fact that in a number of German cities the same thing occured – and, God knows, it would take more than a spider-bite to get your average Teuton to dance feverishly.  The Devil’s work then – so prayers to St. Vitus, patron saint of dance, were required.

The one thing that was obvious to all, though, was that this was an infectious thing. If you witnessed someone dancing this hot-coals and hair unfurled dance, you were bound to get caught up in its sway. A little like this rhythmic masterpiece from Italy’s answer to Tom Waits, Vinicio Capossela.

The Tom Waits tag is slightly unfair, given that this Jazz & Blues gypsy troubadour has his own distinctive sound and style, honed out over years of extensive touring in Italy and now throughout Europe. What the hell though, if it’s a way to get you to drop your provincial bias and give him a listen, then it’s worth the tag.

So, without further ado, turn on the song, step back and picture in front of your eyes men and women dancing as if possesed, as if bitten by something you can’t see, and then join the dance.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtCQXJwN96o