U Stegg!

U Stegg!, a travelling stage of dance and instruments from the southern Aspromonte, is held at Cataforio and neighbouring areas in the province of Reggio Calabria and each of its two yearly editions (summer and winter) lasts a week. Participants can follow traditional courses of local dance, bagpipes, tambourine, mouth organ, the Calabrian lyre, beating guitar.

Unlike other didactic activities held throughout Calabria, this stage has direct contact with the world of dance and music of pastoral and peasant origin. There is no proper stage or amplification, simply “feste a ballu” (dance festivals) held among the lanes and houses … “all’usu anticu”, the way they used to do it. Teaching is through the usual oral channels of observing and repeating together with the local master players and dancers, while every evening it is possible to participate in a festival in different places throughout southern Aspromonte.

There is no archaeological or nostalgic objective behind this, rather the desire to maintain a direct human dimension of the festival, the way the local people have always enjoyed it.