Celebrate the Epiphany with CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE BLACK MADONNA with Alessandra Belloni, featuring music, myths and legends from her FOLK OPERA"THE VOYAGE OF THE BLACK MADONNA" at the beautiful Cathedral of St John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 7:00pm, in the Chapel of St. Savior. Free admission. Part of the CHRIST PROJECT ARTS EXIBIT featuring the sculpture "CHRISTA" of the Female Christ. 

This special evening and performance is a musical journey in the South of Italy and around the world, through the ancient sacred sites of the Black Madonna.Singer, percussionist, healer and director Alessandra Belloni, joined by master bansuri flautist Steve Gorn will present this special night in celebration of the Epiphany.Alessandra will speak about her personal healing journey with the Black Madonna, and her unique research that led her to write the theater and dance piece in 1991 and brought her to be Artist in residence at the Cathedral of St John the Divine.The evening blends healing chants, dances and drumming in honor of the Black Madonna, created from authentic traditions of Southern Italy and Spain, Brazil and France along with original compositions.Belloni and Steve Gorn will take the audience on an enchanting journey of discovery of the seven Black Madonnas, following the ancient Neapolitan legend, 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 today with processions, drumming rituals, chanting and sensual dancing in honor of the Black Madonna, who is considered the most important of the seven sisters. She continues to be venerated on a high sacred mountain, which pilgrims still climb barefoot while chanting and drumming in her honor.Following the Neapolitan tradition, the artists will perform the chant for the Black Madonna of Montevergine, followed by the Tammoriata drumming and sensual dance, and the medieval prayers to the Madonna from Spain CUNCTI SIMUS CONCANENTES which originated, 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.Alessandra will speak about the Myth of the earth Goddess Cybele and Attis and the connection and the transgender priests known as GALLI to the TAMORRIATA drumming and Dance for the Black Madonna of Montevergine:(from the book work in progress by Alessandra Belloni)The tammorra (frame drum) the ancient devotional instrument of the Black Madonna used today just as in pre-Christian times, had been the sacred instrument of the Goddess Cybele. Priestesses in ancient Greece and in Rome honored the Goddess during fertility ceremonies, playing frame drums, singing, dancing wildly.The men who wanted to be initiated in the mysteries of Cybele became women through a ritual castration reenacting the myth of Attis. They were known as Galli, and as priestesses, they played the frame drums and danced in ecstasy.These sensual musical and dance traditions are still alive today in Montevergine exactly as they were thousands of years ago. In Naples, transgender men known as Femminielli celebrate the feast of the Madonna of Montevergine (La Candelora) on February 2. They all dress as women, and perform chanting, ritual drumming and dancing, as well as play the castanets.