Serena D'Amato is a distinguished dancer known for her significant contributions to the traditional Pizzica Salentina. From 1999 to 2017, she served as an official dancer and mainstay of the historical Pizzica group "Tamburellisti di Torrepaduli." She performed with this group in Italy and abroad, participating in hundreds of public and private events and promoting traditional Salento's dance internationally.

Over the years, Serena developed her own style of dance, characterized by free expression and spontaneity. She reinterpreted the traditional dance, making it suitable for individual performance rather than just as a couple, with the primary goal of creating an engaging show for the stage and audience. Her unique approach has since been emulated by many dancers.

Serena has also performed alongside prominent figures in Salento folk music, such as Uccio Aloisi and Robba te Smuju, Pino Zimba; Officina Zoè, the Zimbaria. Her performances have taken her to various locations in Italy and abroad.

With Serena D'Amato's intensive workshop, we will embark together on a journey that starts from the popolare traditions of Salento and reaches new forms of expression, focusing on the ethnochoreographic aspect of Pizzica Pizzica and its evolution.

Emanuele Liquori was born in Nardò, in the province of Lecce. From an early age he was passionately rooted in his land and studied its local musical traditions with great respect. Through a natural oral transmission of popolare traditions from father to son, he learned from his grandfather at a young age, the main instrument of Salento's popolare music tradition: the tamburello. 

Thanks to some exponents such as Pino Zimba and Giancarlo Paglialunga, this passion is added to a continuous research study towards everything that revolves around this instrument. He founded the TarantArneo project, a group born from the friendship of some musicians from the province of Taranto and the Terre dell’Arneo; proposing popolare songs originating from their land but not only. He joined Giancarlo Paglialunga's project “Arneo Tambourine Project,” born from the decision to bring together the most important tamburello players and traditional singers of Salento.

Andrea Caracuta began exploring traditional popolare dance at 14 and embarked on his professional journey in 2002 with the re-formed group "I Figli di Rocco," where he danced for several years. He appeared as a dancer in the "Welcome to Puglia" music video with Pino Campagna. Andrea debuted on the Melpignano stage in 2011 at the Notte della Taranta festival under Ludovico Einaudi's direction and continued performing there in the subsequent editions from 2012 to 2016. In 2012, he danced at the Verona Arena for the Tezenis Award alongside Alessandra Amoroso and Emma Marrone. Over the years, he has collaborated with various revival groups such as "Il Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino," "Officina Zoè," and "Antonio Amato Ensemble." Andrea continues to pursue his passion for dance by teaching courses and seminars on the popolare dances of Salento across different regions of Italy. He is also a member of the dance troupe for the Orchestra Popolare della Notte della Taranta, performing both in Italy and abroad.

In his workshop, Andrea will concentrate on the steps, kinetic modules, stylistic nuances, female and male dynamics, and the use of the handkerchief. This movement lab aims to foster personal growth and self-expression through the mindful practice of dance.

Veronica Calati is a dancer with classical training from Miggiano (Lecce), Puglia.

 Since a very young age, Veronica was captivated by the folk dance of her homeland which has become, throughout the years, her primary artistic expression. Through her art, she expresses positivity and energy. 

Veronica has achieved great milestones in Italy and abroad and has received several prestigious awards worldwide.

She has collaborated with many artists and musical groups, performing in various festivals and theatrical productions, including the Italian Language Festival in Sarajevo, Banjaluka, and Mostar, the Sud Sud Festival in Milan, the Basulafest and Taranta Sicily Fest in Sicily, the Locarno Fest in Switzerland, the Italian Culture Festival in Sofia (Bulgaria), the OrienteOccidente Festival in Rovereto, the Li Ucci Festival in Cutrofiano (LE).

She has collaborated with the Tarantarte company - a new folk dance group with which she participated in the "Calitri Sponz Festival" directed by Vinicio Capossela and the "Sziget Festival" in Budapest.

In 2011, she was part of "La Notte della Taranta" in Melpignano, directed by Ludovico Einaudi. 

In 2016 she inaugurated her Cultural Association TERRA BATTUTA in Conversano (BA), where she regularly organized meetings on the folk dances of southern Italy. 

In 2018 and 2019, she represented Puglia in Shenzhen, China,  she participated in the Wszystkie Mazurki Swiata festival in Warsaw, Poland, with the group "Salentrio", and took part in the international Gran Bal Trad festival in Vialfrè, Piedmont.

Since 2018, she has participated in the Luoghi e Visioni Lineamediterranea International Exhibition in Monopoli, with a show of music and dance and interventions in poetry by Franco Arminio, and in the past year, she held a workshop in Paris at Sudanzare, the Maison de la Tarantella.

 Veronica collaborates with numerous musicians from Puglia and beyond, complementing her activity through shows, performances, and folk dance workshops throughout Italy. She has a rich experience in the Salento folk realm and a personal approach to research and choreographic experimentation.

Singer and musician, Massimiliano De Marco, member of the band Kalascima and numerous traditional music groups, presents "Con un Filo di Voce," with Veronica Calati accompanying in dance. 

The solo project makes vocality and storytelling its privileged expressive basis. 

The singer accompanies himself with classical guitar, tamburello, and live electronics. 

Time is rarefied, it escapes rigid metronomic scansions and expands in the canti alla stisa. The atmosphere becomes more joyful with the Salento stornelli. Fears are defeated with melancholy lullabies and heartaches are cured with poignant serenades of love. 

The drum becomes insistent, dictates the rhythm to the heart and to the dance, leading the audience to face themselves in the dream, to lose themselves in their singularity and find themselves in the collective history.

Giuseppe Delle Donne, player and dancer from Salento, plays different types of southern Italian frame drums (Tamburello, Tammorra, Tammorra sord,...), castanets, spoons, bottle key, to which he adds his voice to tell the history of the places in which the drum is played.

Alongside his uncle Uccio Aloisi, a prominent personality in the musical tradition of Salento, he learned the dances and the music that accompanies them, and incorporated the knowledge of local and peasant musical culture.