|
Piemonte Cultura
ij Danseur dėl Pilon
Via Costigliole, 2
10141 Torino
tel. 011 0437012
cell. 338 6271 206
E.mail info@piemontecultura.it
Sito internet: www.piemontecultura.it
|
Presentation of the Organization
The mission
The Association for Social Promotion PIEMONTE CULTURA, established in 2008, promotes the spread of Piedmonts culture, a mission fulfilled through volunteer work by all its members. The social purpose is to keep the memory and prestige of Piedmontese historical and folk traditions alive in the fields of music, theater, and dance, under the auspices of the Drapņ, the flag of Piedmont. Since 2009, it has been registered in the Associations Registry of the City of Turin and since 2017 in the Regional Register of Associations (Regional Law 11/2009) established for the Enhancement and promotion of knowledge of the linguistic and cultural heritage of Piedmont, and registered with the Registry of Historical and Folkloric Groups established by Resolution of the Presidency Office of the Regional Council of Piedmont No. 34/2024.
Cultural interests have been developed through two distinct projects, both aimed at researching, preserving, and disseminating regional cultural traditions: OFFICINE FOLK®,
the operational headquarters where all cultural and entertainment activities organized by the Association have been carried out since 2008, and
MEDIATECA FOLK®, the Regional Documentation Center of Piemonte Cultura, inaugurated in January 2015, a cultural institution dedicated to cataloging, preserving, and disseminating monographs, periodicals, musical scores, audio and video materials related to Piedmontese cultural heritage, as well as a documentation center on the historical washhouses and municipal baths of Turin.
OFFICINE FOLK® and MEDIATECA FOLK® are projects and trademarks of PIEMONTE CULTURA
entirely dedicated to folk tradition, expressed through history, art, literature, music, dance, and popular singing, closely related to the regional territory.
Maintaining strong ties with Piedmontese communities around the world is an ambition that has led the Group on a journey to the Pampa Gringa in Argentina. Furthermore, embassies and constant cultural exchanges with neighboring regions of European countries, promoted annually, aim not only to make known the richness of the spoken language and the variety of expressive language through music and dance but also to research and highlight similarities and common derivations as a symbol of brotherhood.
The dance group ij Danseur dėl Pilon is composed of about a dozen couples and performs with a repertoire of dances strictly linked to the Piedmontese regional territory. During the events in which it participates (patronal festivals, national and international festivals, etc.), it always offers a moment of animation in which it involves the audience by inviting them to dance together simple choreographies from the Piedmontese popular repertoire.
Normally accompanied by ij Sonador playing traditional instruments such as the diatonic accordion, the hurdy-gurdy, the bagpipe, and the flute. Ij Danseur have devised evocative choreographies and rhythmically accompany their performances with very simple percussion instruments and idiophones made of poor materials, linked to primitive rural activities:
- The Piemontese Tascon, whose melodic sound complements that of the diatonic accordion and whose origin can be traced back to the Coreggiato, an agricultural tool used to separate wheat grains from straw. Threshing, carried out manually with flexible sticks (flails), was certainly a labor that engaged farmers in the hottest months of the summer season, but often it could lead to contests of skill and endurance, turning toil into joy; the wisdom of the gesture was evaluated by older and more experienced farmers not only from a technical point of view but also aesthetically. In fact, the rhythmic beating of the sticks on the ears of grain, in addition to fulfilling the primary function of separating the grains from the chaff and straw, also expressed an aesthetic value because it produced music. This type of musical instrument, used by common people, is found throughout the Alpine arc and in the plains of Piedmont, even before any other instrument used in classical music. Testimonies collected from the elderly tell of festivals and weddings animated exclusively through singing rhythmed by the sound of these instruments; the tascon used by the Group, specially made for musicality, are made of Ash wood, which for its characteristics guarantees excellent sound and robustness;
- The TrichTrach, characteristic idiophone instruments, consisting of plates of various woods, joined together with strings and separated by knots. At both ends are placed handles turned on which the classic six-petal rosette, the sun of the Alps, a symbol of ancient Celtic origin, is carved. The choice of various wooden essences is linked to the availability of raw materials at the time of manufacture. The shape and use recall those of the Tinebre or Trąccola a Tabella, used in the past during Holy Week instead of bells, usually composed only of three blocks of wood hinged together in various ways, which, shaking them from the handles, emitted a rhythmic and loud tac tac. The TrichTrach are played by holding them with both hands, combining wrist rotation with alternate up and down arm movement, so that the ends of the plates banging against each other in sequence produce the characteristic sound. Similar instruments, in terms of operation and form, are found in other ancient musical and theatrical representations. They are used to mark time during the festive march of the group of dancers and musicians.
- The Cantaran-a, whose onomatopoeic name in Piedmontese, literally the singing frog, derives from the resemblance to the sound of the tree frog. This instrument was also played during the rituals of Holy Week, even in the 1960s, as a substitute for the bell before or during religious services. The Cantaran-a appears as a toothed wheel mounted on a handle, rotating which resonates the wooden strips fixed on a frame; it is played by holding it with a crank handle;
- ėl Tamburn, Piedmontese parade drum of Napoleonic origin with a brass body, still used today in the marches of the famous Pifferate of Ivrea. The drums that the Group owns are historical instruments dating back to the early 20th century.
- The costume, the performance costume worn by the Group, evokes popular tradition, freely inspired by the clothing used at the beginning of the last century in the Canavese countryside, on occasion of celebrations.
The dances
The dances proposed follow the course of the seasons, the calendar, and the lunar phases, the rhythm of peasant life in turn marked by the social customs of the community. They rhythmically punctuate the daily life of work in the fields, harvests, festivities in the courtyard for the conscripts, births, and weddings, just to name a few.
At the base of the dances, there is always the group that firmly identifies with its social community with its own hierarchies, strongly linked to the native land and its rituals.
The repertoire proposed by ij Danseur dėl Pilon draws from the historical traditions of the communities of Canavese, bordering in Val di Cogne, Roero, Val Chisone, Val Varaita, and Valle Po.
The stable theater
The group of ij Danseur dėl Pilon has taken up and included in its repertoire a rustic genre of popular theater in Piedmontese language, called Stable Theater, recovering some scripts and curating the representation of numerous scenes
This is a representation with a spontaneous flavor based on popular scripts, staged in a poor and essential setting, such as a stable, a courtyard, a cellar, or a hut. It belongs to the oral peasant tradition mainly of Emilia, but with extensions also in neighboring regions, including Piedmont; many manuscripts, scripts, and plots, almost always unpublished, can be attributed to this genre. Stable Theater is characterized by the dramatic, sometimes grotesque, and often comedic features of the texts, interpreted by farmers, laborers, sharecroppers, shopkeepers, or artisans, in village theaters and more often in courtyards and stables. The scripts are sparse and essential but extremely engaging, and the regional language expresses the voice of the people, exploited and humiliated by the powerful, who instead speak with detachment and haughtiness in the national language. It found the widest diffusion especially between the mid-nineteenth century and the immediate post-World War II period, in the rural context of the Po Valley. Carlin a passa da lą, set in Cascina Gambarua in Marentino, in the province of Turin, and
Ėl frą confessor, are the most appreciated and well-known pieces, now true warhorses.
|
