Has an album title ever been so self-prophetic? In its first year, this electropop opus rocketed Lady Gaga from unknown New York lounge singer to the world’s biggest pop star this side of Britney Spears. The Fame’s brand of pop is shamelessly decadent: 11 of its 13 songs are about money, celebrity, sex, clubbing, or a sticky combination of all four. It’s insipid subject matter, u…
Romance. Passion. Emotion. These words are synonymous with the voice of Andrea Bocelli. Almost ten years ago he exploded onto the international music scene with Romanza, and has since sold nearly 50 million albums worldwide. Amore–released amongst the glamor of the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy (where he will perform at the closing ceremony) and the romance of Valentine’s Day–finds Bocelli st…
Barry Galbraith was one of the best jazz guitarists of the 1950′s. He was also a fine music reader who would write out his own arrangements of standards for his students. Both his playing and his writing are very straightforward. This book takes thirteen of Barry’s rough, hand-written arrangements and adds chord symbols, left-hand fingering, and tablature. The companion CD was recorded by John Pur…
The Tarantella Dance- Potion for Poetry, Romance and Magic
Taranto, the ancient Spartan colony of Tarentum, as a strategic city and port in southern Italy, has never stopped been rich in history, in culture and in traditions. How did Tarentum, combine the Spartan military training with the Athenian arts of entertainment? Taranto started as a home for unmarried Spartan women and free men. The location was picked by Sparta after consulting the Oracle of Delphi. The cheerful dancing to honor the Greek god Dionysius became the source of the tarantella steps. Taranto bloomed into a major place for commerce back then, during medieval times, and still is in our days.
During the 17th century, harvest in suburban Taranto was plagued by tarantulas, the wolf spiders, while the church forbade dancing as a source of sin. The irritant injected by the tarantulas apparently gave a lot of discomfort and caused the victim (tarantato/tarantata) a trance. The medical doctors of the day, knowing the people’s need for fun, prescribed Tarantella, a frantic and frenzied dance as the best treatment for tarantism.
Tarantella became popular when a young girl, Miranda, developed a crush on a young farmer, Matteo, who was as handsome as he was shy. She went to see an old gypsy woman for help. The gypsy advised the young girl to pretend to be beaten by a tarantula as an opportunity to have the young man dance with her. The young man, who desired the young girl in return, dropped a tarantula near Miranda while they were both working in the fields. The tarantula bit the girl’s foot . The girl went into a trance. Matteo danced with Miranda until profuse perspiration, which was followed by a swim in the sea to cool off. Having to dance at least for a full week to make sure the venom was all sweated out, Miranda and Matteo became very close and fell in love. Later they got married. This was the Tarantella Pizzica (the spider’s bite): a cure for romantic and physical ills.
Cities were forbidden to train militarily under the Spanish rule so local men devised theTarantella Scherma, a dance with martial arts steps. Later, harvests and civil occasions promoted the Tarantella del Core, the courtship dance with added flirtatious steps.
Composers turned the Tarantella into masterpieces of music: Gioacchino Rossini, Frederic Chopin, Pyotr Ilvich Thcaikovski, Franz Liszt, Carl Maria Weber, and the contemporary Mark-Anthony Turnage. Even poems have been written to illustrate the enchantment of the Tarantella like Hilaire Belloc’s Tarantella.
As long as there are tarantulas inciting people to dance and fall in love, the Tarantella will charm audiences with its enchantment and amorous cheer. The Tarantella has been a traditional dance at Italian weddings. Tarantella contests and Tarantella shows are quite common. The Gauthier Ballet Troupe, The Armando Curcio Company, and other groups are entertaining audiences with Tarantella extravaganzas. Several regional styles of Tarantella can be viewed on www.YouTube.com.: Pugliese, Calabrese, Sicilian and Neapolitan. Long live the Tarantella and long live love and lovers!
About the Author
Joseph Mangraviti, author of
Hooked on You (heart-felt poems), was born in Genoa, Italy. After completing high school in Messina, Italy, he came with only a pocketful of dreams to the States where he received a college education. The dreams became accomplishments in time. Mr. Mangraviti lives in New Jersey with his wife and kids. He has always enjoyed reading and writing poetry and, most of all, sharing it with family, friends and the public.
Bring home all the romance of Paris with this collection of 20 magnifique instrumentals, including “I Love Paris,” “At a Little Street Cafe,” “Under Paris Skies” and “Boulevard D’Amour.”No Track Information AvailableMedia Type: CDArtist: C’EST L’AMOUR!Title: ROMANTIC FRENCH CLASSICSStreet Release Date: 07/02/1996…
Romance. Passion. Emotion. These words are synonymous with the voice of Andrea Bocelli. Almost ten years ago he exploded onto the international music scene with Romanza, and has since sold nearly 50 million albums worldwide. Amore–released amongst the glamor of the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy (where he will perform at the closing ceremony) and the romance of Valentine’s Day–finds Bocelli st…
Dominican singer, composer, and bandleader Juan Luis Guerra is one of the few true innovators in contemporary Latin music. He created a revolution when he reinvented traditional merengue with smart, poetic lyrics, jazz harmonies, and higher production values. In Bachata Rosa he similarly updated the lowly bachata, the rural, Dominican down-home version of the romantic ballad. Songs such as “Estrel…
Marichuy was left at an orphanage as a baby and grew up on her own. At 14 she was attacked by a drunk. This experience has left her with a deep resentment towards men as well as recurring nightmares. She is taken in by a washer woman who she helps by doing odd jobs. One day, has some trouble that lands her in court where her own father happens to be the judge. She is defended by a psychoanalyst, J…
The delirious passion and angst of Mexican telenovela Amor Real gets a condensed treatment on this concise DVD presentation. Amor Real tells the story of Matilde Penalver (Adela Noriega), a general’s daughter in love with a common soldier named Adolfo Solis (Mauricio Islas), but who is tricked by her status-conscious mother into marrying a wealthy landowner Manuel Fuentes Guerra (Fernando Colung…
Beauty and the Beast: One of the Top Romance Movies
Since romance movies have started to be available to watch in front of your TV screens or through the use of a personal computer, it has undergone several changes as well. Each romantic movie varies on its theme.
Some are tragic, comedy, full of pain and even sad. One of the best romantic movies ever made besides Cinderella and Snow White is Beauty and the Beast animated or not. The top secret why a certain romance movie can attract a lot of viewers is the characters and how they portray their roles.
Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale that was based in France. The story is about a girl named Belle who earns disrespect and contempt by her townsfolk despite of her incomparable beauty mainly because of her oddness.
She is considered weird for she spend most of her time reading books if not helping her father, Maurice, inventing things. Having read all of the things in the town are not something usual for a person to do but these eccentricities of Belle cannot hinder men to desire of marrying her including the conceited plus egoistic Gaston.
Like other best romance movies’ main characters, Belle is a strong woman as well. Belle’s dream of running away from all of these comes true when her father got vanished in the woods. She goes her way to search for him later finds herself inside a daunting castle containing creatures and things with magical features.
The castle is owned by a prince who was turned into a beast by an evil witch and the spell will just be broken once a woman will truly love him despite his awful look. The beast captured Maurice and will just let him go if Belle promises to remain in the castle. Without any further ado, Belle agrees to stay in the castle and Maurice was set free. Their love for each other started to bloom and develop as Belle spends the days in the castle.
There is no wonder why the movie Beauty and the Beast is included in every person’s romantic movies list that really made a big impression and mark on their mind and heart.
About the Author
Cathy Greene loves to share her insights about how romance movies can entertain us from the bittersweet experiences of life and at the same time, how it can affect our way of thinking when it comes to dating, relationships and the likes. Check out for a bunch of new romance movies here!
No Description AvailableNo Track Information AvailableMedia Type: CDArtist: ALL-TIME TOP 100 TV THEMESTitle: ALL-TIME TOP 100 TV THEMESStreet Release Date: 08/23/2005…
Fans of this superheroine fantasy-adventure TV cartoon series will enjoy these 10 songs from the American soundtrack. The mambolike “Sailor Moon Theme” is a favorite. Most of the rest of the songs are Sailor Moon’s (Jennifer Cihi) and are bouncy, upbeat solos expressing the exuberance of youth (“It’s a New Day,” “I Wanna Be a Star!”), the loyalty of friendship (“Call My Name,” “Carry On”), and you…
By day she is Serena, a student at Crossroads Junior Academy. But when the safety of the world is at stake, she transforms into the magical Sailor Scout known as Sailor Moon. With the guidance and wisdom of her talking cat, Luna, Sailor Moon is one tough super hero. In this second volume of four episodes (“Computer School Blues,” “Time Bomb,” “An Uncharmed Life,” and “Nightmare in Dreamland”)…
The 5th season of Rumiko Takahashi’s “feudal fairy tale” Inu Yasha is the darkest, as the familiar characters confront questions of survival, death, and love. Naraku remains hidden, creating a new body for himself as his protective barrier was shattered at end of Season 3. Kagome, Sango, Miroku, Shippo, and Inu-Yasha spend most of these episodes battling the Band of Seven, a group of bloodthirsty…
