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Reclaiming the Mystique and the Lesser Known Stories By Danielle Marie Fusco Original photo by Rob Klein. Photo of myself dancing my recent repertory work called Night Battle There is a silence in Southern Italian history. It lives between the official records and the whispered stories. Between Church archives and kitchen rituals. Between accusation and reverence. It is the silence surrounding the women. The healers. The midwives. The herbalists. The prayer-keepers. The arti

By Danielle Marie Fusco Original Photo by Lauren Jacobbe. (Me) dancing tarantella in Villapiana Calabria In recent years, I have found myself walking a path of ancestral reclamation. As an Italian-American, this journey has led me deeper into the traditions of Southern Italy, into tarantella culture, folk healing, mysticism, and the communal rituals that once shaped everyday life. What I am discovering is that these traditions are not simply relics of the past. They hold pro

By Danielle Marie Fusco Original photo by Rob Klein I was born in the United States, but my blood remembers Southern Italy. As a multidisciplinary artist (dancer, choreographer, aerialist, educator, and ritual practitioner) I live inside the hyphen of Italian-American. My lineage is Southern Italian. My training is American. My body is the meeting point. To dance in the diaspora is to move with two heartbeats at once. It is to feel your being awaken to the rhythm of pizzica

A Call for the Italian American Community to Sustain Its Artists By Danielle Marie Fusco I am an Italian-American artist. I am a dancer, choreographer, aerialist, educator, cultural preservationist, and storyteller of ancestral memory. I am also a practicing shamanic lineage healer and mystic. I live in the space where Southern Italian traditions breathe into contemporary diasporic life ....where lineage meets innovation, where memory becomes movement. And I have to ask: Wher

An Italian American Artist’s Journey into Ancestral Cosmology By Danielle Marie Fusco There is something older than religion. Older than dogma. Older than the Church. Older than the word “pagan.” Older than the word “witch.” There is something primordial. Before there were temples, there was sky.Before there were saints, there were stars.Before there were intermediaries, there was breath. As an Italian American woman, a performing artist, a lineage seeker, and someone who mov