nicola galli

Genoma scenico® is an interactive dance performance based on interaction between audience and dancers.
Genoma scenico is structured as a game session in which people are engaged in the creation of short dance performances experiencing the role of author and choreographer using an original playful device.
Just as each person has a unique genetic code, in the same way the audience is invited to discover the uniqueness of the performance through the use of a device inspired on genome research, a discipline that maps the genetic heritance with the aim of studying the development and the functioning of living things.
The device consists of 33 cards on a table which represent a multiplicity of parameters that compose a performance. Every spectator could choose freely 7 among the 33 cards to generate a personal "genomic string" that contains all the informations of a short performance: number of dancers will act the string, space in which they will move, qualities of movement, duration, quality of sound and direction of light.
All the genomic strings generated by the selection of the cards - metaphor of the chance that set of chromosomes is made up with - will be instantly interpretated and acted by the dancers, as unique artistic result of circumstances and social environment.

4 performer • 33 cards • more than 70.000 combinations

Nicola Galli

Genoma scenico | digital device is a live streaming dance performance which responds actively to the Covid-19 crisis and experimenting a responsable use of new technology.
Starting from the original project based on interaction between audience and dancers, Genoma scenico is structured as a game session in which people are engaged in the creation of short dance performances and experience the role of author and choreographer using an original online game platform.
The performance is inspired by the genome research, a discipline that maps the genetic heritance with the aim of studying the development and the functioning of living things. Just as each person has a unique genetic code, in the same way the audience is invited to discover the uniqueness of the performance through the use of a playful digital device.
The game platform is structured to welcome 10 users - intended as a sigle spectator or a small group of gamer - : everyone can text with the others using a chatbox and follow the live streaming video. Moreover, there is a virtual table useful to interact with the dancers made up of 32 cards that represent a multiplicity of parameters that compose a performance.
Every user could choose freely 7 among the 32 cards to generate a personal "genomic string" that contains all the informations of a short performance: number of dancers that will act the string, space in which the they will move, qualities of movement, duration, quality of sound and direction of light.
All the genomic strings generated by the selection of the cards - metaphor of the chance that set of chromosomes is made up with - will be instantly interpretated and acted in live streaming by the dancers, as a result of audience' choices.
At the end of that, all the gamers will be involved in a final challenge to decide the best decoder of the digital device.

"Genoma scenico it's perhaps one of the most significant Italian productions in this dark historic period for performing arts where web has become the old "garage” to park or scrap any artwork just to seem “active” and “performing”.
[...] Even if we have gradually used to being digital spectators of a barrage of poured contents on various social networks, with one eye looking at the desktop and other at the smartphone, we haven't lost the capacity to understand when a project makes a step forward on the renovation of performance’s composition, dramaturgy or choreography dedicated to the web space.
So it had been for Nicola Galli who has unknowingly absorbed Henry Jenkins’ “Convergence Culture”, combining gaming and theatre and using the web environment and its interactive dynamics, created a really well thought-out collective choreographic game.
[...] But it's not only a game: the performance is interfaced with the digital work in a precise way to define the action areas, potential and possible movements in order not to "leave" the spectator's sight.
Time and space limits become the rhythm and the metric of the device, an endless creative possibility of thousands of potential variations around a single point of view determined by the live streaming video. There is no algorithmic automatism: the creation is alive and present, and the sense of involvement comes precisely from the liveness of the game; the performance is appealing much as the rules are clear and the play is expressed in all its collective shades."

Anna Maria Monteverdi [ www.annamonteverdi.it ]

"The purity and minimal aesthetic of the 33 cards, the calligraphic and symbolic transcription of a variety of elements that compose a dance performance have found a virtual version of exceptional beauty; the chat, which apparently put in contact but did not connect the gamers in a natural alliance (as usually happens in the original version of Genoma Scenico) proved to be the main tool to conduct the game.
The rules, initially designed to be introduced with a pre-recorded video, are explained live, in an attempt to empathise with the participants to create a more welcoming atmosphere.
[...] Part of the success of this residency experience and its outcome comes in my opinion from the naturalness of the migration of the project from offline to online; the game pleases, amuses and convinces because the concept and its digital translation were never literally conceived and realised, actually: Genoma Scenico finds on Internet and in the virtual space the original instantaneity of the choreographic composition, interactivity, aesthetic purity, but also new possibilities of evolution, increasing the possible combinations."

Federica Patti [ diario di bordo - residenze digitali ]

"[...] The «gameplay», which is the sum of our actions within the interactive environment, is configured in a form of participatory live coding written by the audience themselves. The user has at his disposal a range of symbols that compose a code which provide precise choreographic informations to the dancers.
Each participant is required to provide their own code, producing a modular choreography and making each performance unique and virtually unrepeatable. The interaction becomes authentic writing, and the performance becomes a bridge between the author and the audience in a sort of continuous creation, an unpredictable mutability cadenced by the sound of «clicks!»."

Giuseppe di lorenzo ["Punta e clicca", La Falena - 1/2021 ]