Ararat

The concert, entitled Ararat, sees the presence of composers and musicians Roberto Paci Dalò e Giacomo Vanelli. The Mount Ararat: sacred peak, lost heart, indelible symbol of Armenian identity. Today it stands beyond the border, in Turkish territory, but continues to dominate the horizon of the capital Yerevan. It is the mountain of Noah’s Ark, of salvation and rebirth, but also the mountain of absence, of denied land, of desire. In the silence of its snow-covered slopes, the condition of the diaspora is reflected, the wound of separation and, at the same time, the hope of a return.

7LEMI احلامي

2023
Wissal Houbabi and Roberto Paci Dalò create 7LEMI (My Dreams), a performance-flow in which vocal, instrumental and electronic materials draw a dream time (dreamtime). The creation of an acoustic and dreamlike environment within which the voices move, guided by chironomy, between intelligibility of the text (in Dārija) and glossolalia, aphasia and pre-verbal language. The sheet of paper is abandoned to enter the forest of memory and orality where “the language of your dreams is the language of your flesh”.

eBAU

2024
eBAU. Art Dreams for the New European Bauhaus is a collection of thoughts and ideas on what a New European Bauhaus could be. Not an essay, not an administrative document, not a plea nor a manifesto. Simply a series of suggestions morphing into fleeting visions, sudden vistas breaking through the fog of daily life. What can art mean for the European Bauhaus? What can artists bring to the idea of a new school that invents a new aesthetics, green and sustainable and equal, for a better world? Artist Roberto Paci Dalò shares his thoughts in drawings and texts. An artist’s book, a light collection of insights and incitements fluttering out of the page, to point to other realities that are ours to invent.

Mandel’štam

2024
A cycle of variations around the words and time of Osip Mandel’štam with Roberto Paci Dalò performing live. The artist investigates the work of the Jewish-Russian poet Osip Mandel’štam (1891-1938) and his relationship with Armenia as well. It’s going on a cycle of artistic actions made of concerts, workshops, conversations, theatre, drawing, performances, film, editions. Starting from these practices the artist will then create a theatre work entitled Sole nero that will debut in the 2025/2026 season.

Preludio alle braci

2023
«Spread a nail of pitch in the thurible of the book.» Preludio alle braci is a scenic alphabet and a sound ritual where book, music and voice become a way of blowing on the embers, “alarms in the long night”. Starting from a performative recovery of the tradition of unrolling the scroll Exultet, which during the Easter Vigil the deacon-cantor slides down from the pulpit while chanting its content, Giorgiomaria Cornelio and Roberto Paci Dalò orchestrate an electronic ceremony of sounds, wind instruments and gestures around the poetic text La consegna delle braci (Luca Sossella Editore).

Il mestiere delle armi

Mappia

2023
The Ministry of Culture has nominated the Via Appia in Rome for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Part of the candidacy documentation is Mappia, a work by Roberto Paci Dalò commissioned by the MiC. The artist and cartographer has created a map of over 9 meters in leporello format.

Nota bene

2023
Mirco Ghirardini and Roberto Paci Dalò in a completely improvised project. Created for the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, Italy.

Lettere a Valentinov

2022
How did it happen that a century that began with the progressive inertia of revolutions culminated in the restoration of a ferociously inequitable and unequal society? And what role do pandemics play in this context? A performance that mixed the art of the spoken word with acustic and electronic music. Gabriele Frasca and Roberto Paci Dalò join forces.

Sole nero

2025-2026
A theatre show by and with Roberto Paci Dalò freely inspired by the writings of Osip Mandel’štam. The project starts from the writings of the Jewish-Russian poet Osip Mandel’štam (who died in 1938 while traveling to a gulag in the far east of the Soviet Union) intertwining it with the practice of samizdat. Sole nero is a theatrical-musical work with Paci Dalò on stage. Surrounded by visual and sound machines, he goes through the text using Italian and Russian phonetics that at times become glottolalia.

DUCTUS

2022
Ductus is a site-specifc artwork born on the occasion of the new refurbishment of Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria. A chronological map, realized in watercolor graphite and Indian ink, that remedies, through images, symbols and words, some watersheds of history and art in Umbria.

Temporanea

2024
Temporanea by/with  Giorgiomaria Cornelio, Roberto Paci Dalò, Ida Travi. A weaving of voices – concert. Temporanea unites the visions and poetics of the three artists, an ensemble made of voices, instruments and electronics.

Lament. A Sound Ritual

2022
LAMENT is a sound ritual where analog and digital sounds merge. A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments constitute some of the oldest forms of writing, and examples exist across human cultures.

Niggunim

2018
Roberto Paci Dalò reworks traditional materials by combining clarinet and bass clarinet with live electronics. Creating a bridge between tradition and contemporaneity in the name of a music of prayer that involves sound and body. Niggun (niggunim plural) means in Hebrew: “air” or “melody” and is a form of Jewish religious song or melody sung by groups. It is a technique of singing, often with abstract repetitive sounds in place of a formal lyric. Sometimes verses from the Torah, or quotes from other classical Jewish texts, are sung repetitively to create a niggun. Some niggunim are sung as prayers of lamentation, while others may be joyful or victorious. 

Risvegli

2022
Risvegli is a site-specific project of images, drawing and sound realized by Roberto Paci Dalò and Nicoletta Ceccoli for the National Pavilion of the Republic of San Marino at La Biennale di Venezia 59th International Art Exhibition.

Repertoire

2021
100 scenes, 300 sound objects, 5 performers and a painted scene: Repertoire is an open work that leaves great inventive freedom. Roberto Paci Dalò presents a new performance of Mauricio Kagel’s work in a setting in which “everything is separate, everything is together”.

In Darkness Let Me Dwell

2018
The historical archive of the Banco di Napoli becomes the subject of a film by Roberto Paci Dalò based on a cinematic exploration of this extraordinary place. A journey into the details, into the folds of History and stories made of images that will speak through sounds, some of which are precisely those of the pages of the folders that, leafed through and elaborated, through light electronics, will become ambient music. The sound of the archive, its voice. Using black and white, a timeless work will be created that will give life to a suspended state of mind, attentive to these documents.

HA

2020
HA is a radiophonic sound forest created from the real voice of Hannah Arendt intertwined with instrumental and electronic sounds. A sensorial journey in her phonetics where words are transformed into cartographical sonic materials. A cinematic and experimental approach where, however, even complex materials are organized in a radio composition accessible to all audiences.

Organo Magico Organo Laico

2006
Organo Magico Organo Laico is a multimedial, scenic and musical project by Roberto Paci Dalò designed to enhance the value of an ancient Mantuan organ of the nineteenth century, enigmatically placed in a “secular” place. Not in a church, but inside a theatre, the mysterious and “magic” sound object is located in the Reggio Emilia Valleys and is inaccessible to the gaze of the public in the hall. The project includes the creation of ten new musical scores composed ad hoc for the precious organ, which finally becomes the protagonist of the theatrical scene. In addition, some architectural and constituent details of the organ are shown to the public through the projection of some of its details on large white canvases placed on the proscenium.

KIN

2020
KIN is a radio and performance project with workshop sessions of The School of Radio. The city of Santarcangelo is temporary “occupied” with the broadcasting of a composite schedule: materials of the artists present at the festival, the voice of the citizens and original materials created by the team will be spread throughout public and private space with listening points, improvisations, electronics and radio performances. Within the Santarcangelo Festival 2020 and 2021.

Space is the Place

2018
Space is the Place by Roberto Paci Dalò is a performance for radio telescope sounds and modular synth. The project is a hommage to composer and poet Sun Ra and in particular his Space Is the Place film and album.

Ye Shanghai

2012
Ye Shanghai is a project by Roberto Paci Dalò that includes a filmic work, an exhibition, an audio-video installation, a record and live performances. The project shows the unexplored history of the Shanghai Ghetto. The city of Shanghai was the last port open to Jews fleeing the Nazi occupation. The Jewish refugees went to a ghetto in the district of Hongkou, an area of Shanghai that had been occupied by Japan. As Ye Shanghai shows, three cultures unexpectedly found themselves living together in a small area of Shanghai: Hebrew, Chinese and Japanese.

Alla ricerca del Treno di John Cage

2018
Alla ricerca del treno di John Cage is a two-day project that links the project Transappenninica, the connotation of Porretta Città della Musica with the re-enactment of the 40th anniversary of John Cage’s Train. A historic steam train runs along the Bologna – Porretta Terme route equipped with audio video installations, electronic, popular, classical and rock music.

Italia anno zero

2004
Italia anno zero is a scenic, musical and cinematographic project by Roberto Paci Dalò and Olga Neuwirth, based on texts by Antonio Gramsci, Giacomo Leopardi and Pier Paolo Pasolini. The works of these great writers of Italian literature are presented in a scenic concert with an original staff: a band of five members composed of clarinets, guitar, electronics, sampler and theremin vox. After the premiere at the Budapest Autumn Festival in 2004, Italia anno zero has been presented in France, England and Germany.

Funkhaus Heiner Müller

2020
Funkhuas Heiner Müller is a cycle of workshops and performances, conceived and led by Roberto Paci Dalò, that takes place in different locations. The workshop focuses on the texts of the German playwright Heiner Muller. At each stage different texts are used and become the basis for staging a performance adapted to the location and broadcast on the radio.