Taranta Fest opens in Salento on Aug. 2

(ANSA) - Milan, June 13 - The 21st edition of 'La Notte della Taranta', a festival dedicated to folk-music traditions of the Salento area in southern Puglia, will open this year on August 2.
    The event will include over 100 hours of live concerts with 360 artists and 40 concerts of local 'pizzica' music to be held across Salento.
    The festival's traditional closing concert in Melpignano is scheduled on August 25.
    Three exhibits will be inaugurated during the festival.
    A show will be dedicated to late singer and song-writer Domenico Modugno.
    Another exhibit will pay homage to Renata Fonte, a councilor in Nardò who was killed by the mafia in 1984 over her fight against excessive cementification as this edition of the festival is dedicated to the landscapes and countryside that inspired local folk music and dance traditions.
    Massimo Manera, the president of the foundation that organizes the event, said at the presentation of the Notte della Taranta at the Gallerie d'Italia in Milan that this edition of the event will "embrace theater, the area's historic and monumental heritage and folklore as well as music and dance".
    Artists who will perform include singer and song-writer Carmen Consoli, Elio from band 'Elio e le storie tese', musician Ambrogino Sparagna, the group 'Le Menadi Danzanti' and puppet theater 'Teatro dei Pupi' with Mimmo Cuticchio and Philippe Daverio.
    Michele Coppola, who is the director of the art, culture and historic heritage department of bank Intesa San Paolo, which sponsors the event, said that the lender's museum Gallerie d'Italia (Italy's galleries) in Milan, "are called in this way because they aim to display all of the country's identities, not just art, painting and sculpture but also the traditions of our being Italian".
    "This is why we work for this event", he concluded.