Dance and live electronics

Duration: 12′

Year: 2025

“La lingua dell’aria” — The Tongue of the Air — is the title that emerged from reflecting on the invisible thread connecting two expressive forms: music and dance. Both are ephemeral, fleeting gestures that leave no trace on the surface of the world — and yet, they resonate deeply. What do music and dance have in common, at their core? They move air.

Sound is vibrating air. Movement, too, displaces air, carves space, breathes. In this piece, I found it beautiful and meaningful to think of our practices — the musician’s and the dancer’s — as two parallel ways of shaping the same material. This shared material becomes our common language.

The ambiguity in the title — between tongue as organ and tongue as language — is deliberate. It suggests that sound and movement are not only abstract signs, but also deeply corporeal acts, rooted in breath, skin, muscles, resonance.

But there is also another layer to this title — a quiet defiance. In a world that often measures value in terms of productivity, utility, or visible results, artistic work is frequently dismissed as “useless.” After all, we “only” move air. We “only” make sounds or shapes that vanish the moment they appear.

Yet that “uselessness” is precisely where the power lies. Art does not exploit, consume, or conquer. It listens. It offers presence. It gives form to feeling. The fact that it is intangible, immaterial, ungraspable — that it moves only air — makes it a radically peaceful and profoundly ecological gesture.

This piece, then, is both a celebration and a provocation. A celebration of the fragile, essential act of moving air with intention — and a provocation to those who see no value in what leaves no mark. Because in truth, what could be more vital than air?

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