The countdown has begun. The most anticipated festival of the Italian summer returns on Saturday, August 23rd, to the main square of Melpignano (Lecce), where every year the Salento region celebrates itself through rhythm, memory and vision.
Begun as a popular ritual and grown into a cultural phenomenon with over 150,000 attendees, La Notte della Taranta is today a symbol of Mediterranean identity that communicates with the world.
The 2025 edition will be a return to its origins, but with a forward-looking vision.
It will be a tribute to Ernesto De Martino, 60 years after his passing. The father of modern Italian anthropology, De Martino gave voice to the dances, songs and wounds of the South. Without him, perhaps, this night would not exist.
The festival will come to life through a tour of the villages of Salento, including performances, meetings and collective rituals. It will conclude with the Notte delle Ronde on Sunday, August 24th in Galatina (Lecce), a symbolic place of tarantism: a festival that is both secular prayer and contemporary catharsis.
In a present that needs roots to face the future, the pizzica returns to being what it has always been: a heartbeat that heals, a language that unites, a necessary gesture.
