Italian Diasporic Repertoire: Women, Ritual, and the Living South
Danielle Marie Fusco’s diasporic repertoire is rooted in the embodied histories of Southern Italy, where dance, ritual, and survival were often carried by women’s bodies. This body of work draws from ancient folk traditions and reframes them through contemporary performance to illuminate women’s stories that have long remained unseen or misunderstood in the United States.
Danielle’s diasporic work seeks to restore an authentic lens to Italian-American cultural narratives, moving beyond Hollywood stereotypes, romanticized folklore, or narrowly defined immigration histories. While many Italian immigrants to the United States came from the South, much of the spiritual and ritual knowledge they carried—particularly women’s knowledge—was silenced, absorbed into the Church, or deemed taboo. Yet throughout Southern Italy, pagan and pre-pagan rites continue to live on, often beneath Catholic frameworks, preserved through lineage rather than written record.
This repertoire honors the female shamanic contributions of the South: women as healers, artists, drummers, midwives, caretakers of land and community. Long before institutional medicine, women were the carriers of herbal knowledge, ritual practice, and spiritual mediation. Danielle’s work gives physical voice to stories of secret societies of women, of remedies and recipes taken or rewritten by patriarchal institutions, of women forbidden literacy yet fluent in embodied wisdom. Themes of necromancy—often labeled dark or forbidden—are reframed as sacred ritual practices rooted in ancestral connection, grief, and reverence for the dead.
At the heart of this work is an indigenous relationship to land and nature, and the reclamation of archetypes such as the witch and the goddess—not as symbols of fear, but as expressions of autonomy, intuition, and sacred power. Through movement, Danielle weaves ancient folk forms with contemporary theatrical language, creating performances that speak to lineage, diaspora, and the enduring presence of women as cultural keepers. Her repertoire is not a reconstruction of the past, but it is a living continuum, where ancestral ritual meets contemporary embodiment, and where women’s stories are finally allowed to move, speak, and be seen.
Repertory Projects
Danielle Marie Fusco's new repertory work Il Rituale is an autobiographical, physical narrative that explores her journey of ancestral healing and veneration of Pre-Pagan Italian culture through a series of shamanic initiation rites, channelings, lineage healing, and research. Utilizing elements of dance and physical theatre, circus and sacred ritual, Danielle’s work carves out the stories of one of history’s most intriguing and mystical European civilizations.
Her work visually and physically transforms a performance space, captivating the audience and immersing them into a genuine demonstration of the shamanic practices prevalent among southern Italian healers. Inspired by folk tales of secret socieities of Southern Italian women, Danielle sheds light on their teachings of the mysteries of the universe and our natural connection to spirit and magic.
Guided by this inspiration, Danielle's Il Rituale encourages deeper introspection into our most fundamental principles of life, urging us to recognize our shared heritage and contemplate our collective aspirations for the future. Dance and ritual are deeply intertwined in Italian culture, inseparable when one embarks on a journey to manifest magic and ponder the mystical nature of our connection to the cosmos.
This performance delves into the magical realm where unity with the universe allows for perceptions beyond verbal expression.Through this evolving piece, Danielle Marie Fusco's Il Rituale aims to bridge the cosmic connection between the audience and the performers, using the powerful mediums of dance, ritual, incense, prayer candles, fabric, aerial arts and interdisciplinary art modalities to communicate age-old legends and traditions.
Da Donna A Strega
From Woman to Witch
Da Donna a Strega is an evocative contemporary dance work that reimagines the story of the witch through a deeply female perspective, blending modern and spiritual movement with the rich cultural mysticism of Southern Italian traditions. The piece is a visceral exploration of repression, resilience, and transformation, weaving the broom—a powerful yet unassuming symbol—into a narrative of captivity and liberation.
At its core, Da Donna a Strega tells the story of a Calabrian woman whose identity is fractured by patriarchal fear and control. The term "witch," historically assigned by men to ostracize and diminish women, is reclaimed in this work as a metaphor for divine, untamed power. This piece reflects how a woman's essence, her uniqueness, and her connection to her mystical nature were severed through imposed labels.
The broom, central to the performance, embodies the duality of repression and escape. It represents the domestic burden—a tool of enforced labor, confinement, and servitude within the home. At the same time, it is her key to freedom, a literal and metaphorical vehicle for transcendence. According to folklore, witches used brooms to fly, breaking the chains of their confinement. In Da Donna a Strega, the broom becomes both a symbol of her anchored captivity and her ultimate liberation, alchemized through the woman’s inherent magic.
La Madre/The Mother
Danielle Marie Fusco's La Madre is a recent work commissioned by Vanessa Racci for her 6th Annual Festa Della Donna at the Columbus Citizens Foundation.
Drawing inspiration from the expressive physicality of modern dance, my reverence for ancient cultures, and my deep curiosity about the mystic and esoteric world, La Madre explores the timeless essence of the female archetype—the one who births, nurtures, laments, and ultimately harnesses power through life force energy.
Rooted in the mystical traditions of Southern Italy, this solo is a sacred embodiment of creation, love, and renewal. It honors the eternal presence of the Divine Mother—Mother Mary, the Great Goddess (Grand Dea), the Madonna, and Mother Earth herself. The piece moves through the space as both an invocation and an offering, bridging the celestial and the earthly, the ancient and the contemporary.
Adorned in beige to reflect her universality beyond any single faith, La Madre is a prayer to the sacred feminine in all her forms—healer, protector, creator, and eternal source of life. Through movement, this work serves as a lamentation, a hymn, and a celebration of resilience, faith, and the transformative power of the feminine spirit.
We all embody La Madre.
Flight of the Tarantata
Flight of the Tarantata, an aerial, folk, and contemporary dance work that weaves together myth, movement, and memory. This piece is a deep exploration of Tarantism, the ancient Southern Italian dance ritual of healing and trance, reimagined through the lens of aerial artistry and modern storytelling.
From the first whisper of ancestral calling to the wild, ecstatic unraveling of the tarantata. This work is not just about dance; it is about remembrance. It is a reclamation of a forgotten ritual, a reconnection to the women who danced for survival, for healing, for transcendence.
Each work captures a moment of this evolution: the call of ancestry, the first steps into the unknown, the bite that awakens, the trance that liberates, and the ultimate flight—suspended between sky and earth, where movement becomes medicine. The silk of the aerial apparatus becomes the thread linking past and present, weaving a story of resilience and rebirth.
Stay tuned as Flight of the Tarantata continues to take shape. More photos, videos, and behind-the-scenes glimpses will be shared as this work unfolds.
Negromante
Negromante is a diasporic performance work rooted in the ancestral spiritual traditions of Southern Italy. Drawing from embodied research, ritual movement, and storytelling, the piece re-examines ancient forms of Italian folk magic and mysticism through a contemporary lens—bringing inherited wisdom into dialogue with the present moment.
Historically, practices often labeled negromanzia or stregoneria in Italy were not acts of darkness, but complex systems of healing, protection, remembrance, and communion with the unseen. In rural and southern regions, these traditions—often stewarded by women—served as vital cultural technologies for navigating grief, illness, repression, and social rupture. Over time, many of these practices were misunderstood, stigmatized, or erased, particularly within diasporic narratives in the United States.
Negromante functions as a living ritual rather than a conventional performance. Through movement, symbolic gesture, and ceremonial action, the work illuminates the spiritual intelligence embedded in Italian ancestral practices—honoring the body as archive and the ritual space as a site of transmission. The piece challenges inherited narratives that frame these traditions as taboo or ominous, reframing them instead as practices of care, continuity, and deep reverence for lineage.
The work reflects years of cultural research, embodied practice, and diasporic inquiry. Fusco’s approach bridges contemporary performance with ancestral remembrance, inviting audiences to witness Italy not only as a geographic or aesthetic inheritance, but as a living spiritual culture.
Negromante ultimately asks: What has been forgotten, and what can be remembered through the body?
It invites audiences into a space of reflection—encouraging a reconnection to ancestry, ritual, and the quieter forms of knowledge that exist beyond written history.
May this work serve as an opening—toward remembrance, toward healing, and toward a deeper understanding of the true spirit of Italy: layered, mystical, and enduring.
Photographers: Jeff Mondlock, Wendy Wild, Eric Bandiero, Rob Klein, Antonella Cordaro, Kiersten Orteyza