Tarantella ★★½ 1995

Aspiring New York photographer Diane DiSorella (Sorvino) gets a shock when her mother dies suddenly. After returning to the New Jersey home and Italian-American community she rejected, Diane is given a journal her mother secretly kept by old family friend Pina (Gregorio). Small-scale story with Diane's big change being learning to accept where she came from. 84m/C VHS, DVD . Mira Sorvino, Rose Gregorio, Stephen Spinella, Matthew Lillard, Antonia Rey, Frank Pellegrino; D: Helen DeMichiel; W: Helen DeMichiel, Richard Hoblock; C: Teodoro Maniaci; M: Norman Moll.

tar·an·tel·la / ˌtarənˈtelə/ (also tar·an·telle / -ˈtel/ ) • n. a rapid whirling dance originating in southern Italy. ∎  a piece of music written in fast 6/8 time in the style of this dance.

tarantella (It.), tarantelle (Fr.). Neapolitan dance in 6/8 time which probably takes its name from Taranto, in the heel of Italy, or from a spider common there, the tarantula, whose bite is mildly poisonous. The music is of great rapidity with an approach to the perpetuum mobile. The saltarello is a similar type. Chopin, Rossini, Liszt, and Mendelssohn are among composers who have used the tarantella in their works.

tarantella a rapid whirling dance originating in southern Italy. The word comes (in the late 18th century) from Italian, from the name of the seaport Taranto; so named because it was thought to be a cure for tarantism, the victim dancing the tarantella until exhausted.

tarantella rapid whirling S. Italian dance. XVIII. — It., dim. formation on Taranto name of a town in Apulia, Italy (the ancient Tarentum). The dance was popularly supposed to be a remedy for tarantism hysterical malady characterized by an impulse to dance (XVII), f. Taranto; the malady itself was pop. attributed to the bite of the tarantula.