nicola galli

Sconfinamenti is the encounter between two eclectic Italian artists, two worlds that open up for the first time in the total absence of rehearsals.
In a space of improvisation, Nicola Galli, an exponent of the current nouvelle vague of Italian contemporary dance, and the composer and violinist Rodrigo D'Erasmo (a member of the band Afterhours) dialogue on the edge of their respective artistic languages to compose a choreographic-sound score in the instantaneousness of play.
Between synchronies and vanishing points, a path takes shape that, interweaving sound and movement, unfolds into an invitation to go beyond the boundaries of one's own territory and to contaminate oneself in order to find in reciprocity a space permeable to listening.

"Nicola Galli is a dancer with a slender figure and a boyish face, a elf with cobalt-coloured hair who does a bit of 1980s punk. Rodrigo D'Erasmo is a classically trained violinist, 'led astray' on the road to the rough and somewhat grunge rock of Afterhours, of which he has been a member since 2008.
Galli's body draws the space, fills its voids, outlines a variable geometry that revolves around the almost hieratic figure of D'Erasmo. Galli seems to be attracted and then repelled by the musician, he comes and goes with his slight body - you can't hear him, not even his breath has traces of breathlessness -, he leaps, twists, bends. His is not a dance in levare, but a continuous twisting of limbs, head, torso, in a balance that is at once gentle and sharp.
D'Erasmo delivers emotions with his amplified violin, with enveloping music and siren-like spell that is impossible to resist. The spell, perhaps even enchantment, is immediate.
Between sound and gesture it is body to body, it is empathy, sometimes rejection. There are dance and music, complementary elements by vocation. But in Sconfinamenti there is more: it is a dialogue that is created on the spot, an improvisation with unexpected outcomes. It is a taking and fleeing, it is a strange and evocative pas de deux between a body in space and notes that fill that same space."

Barbara Caffi [ Quotidiano La Provincia - 01/2024 ]

"The thirty-four-year-old Galli, from Ferrara, dialogues with the Brazilian-born violinist and multi-instrumentalist D'Erasmo in an empty space, where only the lights change, sometimes in light blue tones in tune with the dancer-choreographer's crest of hair, sometimes lit in warm orange or red. Nicola's well-known suppleness helps him to draw in the space a path of continuous approaching and moving away from his musical interlocutor, who is responsible for scanning the ups and downs of music that is sometimes cold, sometimes bright, and even surprisingly modified under his right foot by electronic percussion.
The diagonal that leads the dancer in baggy trousers and tight T-shirt almost to the side of the multi-instrumentalist does not change, just as much of the movement does not change: the arms raised to the sky, the measured and evasive gestures induce a sort of magical hypnosis in the observer, shaken by sudden slips to the ground.
What appears to be improvised in these 'Sconfinamenti' is not at all so, proving the choreographer Nicola Galli's compositional knowledge."

Marinella Guatterini [ Artribune - 02/2024 ]

"Sconfinamenti is a challenge between a dancer and a musician. It is a falling in love in the dark, a chance between two artists who had never met before: Nicola Galli, enfant prodige of Italian contemporary dance, and Rodrigo D'Erasmo of Afterhours. Two worlds, two languages, one meeting in the sign of the desire to cross borders to find oneself renewed, richer. A virtual meeting on the Meet platform and then the Ponchielli theatre rehearsal room to create Sconfinamenti, a dialogue of improvisation and wisdom between two creatives. Nicola Galli, the Puck of Italian dance, seized the opportunity and gave himself as generously as Rodrigo D'Erasmo's compositional and performing creativity offered a sound atmosphere to build a dialogue of movement and emotions. The solo came from this encounter, from briefly smelling each other, from opening all the pores of the skin and the brain to perceive and make the other their own. To call it a solo is, however, reductive. It may be that Nicola Galli fills the space with geometric and supple choreutic persistence, it may be that the lights define the timing and chromaticism of the movement and music, but to speak of a solo seems inappropriate for Sconfinamenti because at the end we are witnessing an unusual pas de deux.
Rodrigo D'Erasmo himself, in his playing, bending his body, creating a symbiotic whole with his violin, creates a dance in his own way. Physicality in musicians is not a secondary aspect in the performance and physical relationship with the instrument. This is why - after all - there are two people dancing on the Ponchielli stage, and the dialogue takes place between dancer and musician, but also in the choreographic improvisation, as well as in the musical performance of pieces that change, mutate and seem to breathe in space and in the body. In front of the audience's eyes, something magical and unusual happens, we experience the performance, which means crossing matter to create something unexpected that astonishes the observer and the performer. And this is the feeling that Sconfinamenti gives: the possibility of an unexpected dialogue between two sensitive artists with the audience as witness."

Nicola Arrigoni [ Sipario.it - 03/2024 ]