30 October 2011

more from the white night

More photos from yesterday (and comments added to last night's post below)
or, more correctly, the flavours of autumn and endless day (white night, when it doesn't get dark).
This was a very large group, one of at least four providers of live music. A band was set up at either end of the street and itinerant groups and musicians wandered between them.
Most were dressed in traditional costume with the distinctive leather shoes of Ciociaria.
Later in the evening a huge crowd gathered around a part of this group as they seemed to engage in a theatre sports type of sing-off. Three of the singers tried to out-sing one another in a tit-for-tat song. Occasionally I heard murmers of "he's won" yet still the competition went on. The lyrics became more outrageous, but as they were in dialect I understood only a quarter of it. That might have been lucky, as the ladies in the crowd were covering their faces and looking shocked while trying to stifle their laughter. The local men occasionally looked across to see how this foreigner might be reacting, but I was able to look quite innocent as I truly hadn't heard this language before!

And below, the reward for beautiful dancing? The "light on his feet" musician quickly hopped back up onto the stage and the lovely dancer continued the next dance with her female companions.
Some musicians are simply too fast to photograph, but the I think that the effect is a work of art. (Note the white coffee pot on a stick in the background - apparently disjointed in this photo, but it wasn't - that is a percussion instrument).
And when is a carved pumpkin not a jack-o-lantern? When it too observes the "bella figura" that is Italy!

Today I am grateful for community.

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