MONDAY APRIL 18 QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY 6;00pm   41-17 Main Street Flushing NY 11355 (718) 661-1200     THE VOYAGE OF THE BLACK MADONNA An Interfaith Healing Concert Dedicated to World Peace, featuring ancient chants to the Black Madonna from Southern Italy  

  Alessandra Belloni      Internationally honored, singer, percussionist, healer and director  AlessandraBelloni,  joined by her Italian folk music/theater/dance company I Giullari diPiazza, will present the special holiday celebration "Mystical Music in Honor of the Black Madonna," a musical journey around the world to the ancient sacred sites of the Black Madonna.   This unique and impeccably researched  theater and dance work blends healing chants, dances and drumming in honor of the Black Madonna, created from authentic traditions of Southern Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, and Brazil, along with original compositions, December 12 at 8 PM, and December 13 at 3 PM at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue.   Belloni and her troupe of dancers, actors, and musicians, all specialists in Southern Italian traditions, will take audiences on an enchanting journey of discovery of the 7 Black Madonnas, known as the "Seven Sisters" in Southern Italy.  This trip into traditional legends, miracles, and history, transports audiences to a time and place where an unbroken and ancient tradition continues with processions, drumming rituals, chanting and sensual dancing in honor of the Black Madonna, who is considered the most important of the 7 sisters.   She continues to be venerated on a high sacred mountain, where pilgrims still make the trip up the mountain, barefoot while chanting and drumming in her honor.     Alessandra Belloni, tambourine virtuoso, singer, ritual dancer, pioneering scholar, teacher and Shamanic healer connects in an unbroken lineage to the primordial Great Mother, or the Black Madonna.  The healing power of medieval prayers to the Madonna originated in the Middle Ages, during the Black Death Plague, and was believed to release people from their overpowering fears of death and the annihilation of their way of life.   The dancing evokes the elegant and meditative movements of the Whirling Dervishes and is accompanied by song in the procession that follows the Black Madonna.Following the Neapolitan tradition, the company will perform the chant for the Black Madonna of Montevergine, followed by the Tammorrita drumming and sensual dance.      The full-length Voyage of the Black Madonna, written by Alessandra Belloni and premiered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1991, has been performed since then at numerous festivals and venues, including the Los Angeles Sacred Music Festival, the New York Open Center, and Glastonbury Goddess Festival.   The work includes rare chants that have never been heard outside of the live ceremonies in Italy, and has now been recorded on a few of I Giullari di Piazza's CDs, including Earth, Sun and Moon, Tarantata - Dance of the Ancient Spider (Sounds True), Tarantelle and Canti d'Amore, Tarantella Spider Dance.   CAST:    ALESSANDRA BELLONI - artistic director, mezzo-soprano, voice of the Black Madonna, percussion, narration IVAN THOMAS - keyboards MARK MINDEK - stilt dancer FRANCESCA SILVANO - dancer AMARA - fire and belly dancer    Don Hackman, writing in the Los Angeles Times, found that "Alessandra Belloni and 'Tarantata: Dance of the Ancient Spider, is a revelation, utterly fascinating."   Drum Magazine noted that "Italian-born virtuoso Alessandra Belloni is established as a unique phenomenon, not just a percussionist, but also an actress, lecturer, entertainer, and healer."   Jon Pareles of The New York Times, reviewing an I Giullari di Piazza show, remarked that "Ms. Belloni sang in an exultant voice.   The songs blazed with an age-old momentum."     BEAUTIFUL PAINTING  OF THE BLACK MADONNA BY ARTIST ARDEN MASON WILL BE ON DISPLAY AT THE CONCERT.     Procession of The Black Madonna Cuncti Simus Simushttp://youtu.be/HJqD5cr1NKk   Trance Dance of San Rocco http://youtu.be/B-EgfFvcZdc