In 2011, Dancity hosted one of its most luminous and intimate moments. At the center of that preview were Ryuichi Sakamoto and Carsten Nicolai, aka Alva Noto: two artists who, coming from different languages, composed together a sonic code made of pauses, fragments, and invisible tension.
The project presented, “S”, took place at the Teatro Morlacchi in Perugia as an act of care and presence: a benefit concert, with all proceeds donated to the victims of the earthquake in Japan. But it wasn’t just solidarity: it was a secular ritual, a form of collective listening.
During the interview released just a few hours before the concert, Sakamoto says:
“I was in Tokyo, recording. I was waiting for a musician when the earthquake started. At first it seemed like one of the usual ones… then I realized it was different. The whole building was shaking. I held the microphones and instruments instead of running. That’s the nature of a musician.”
Alva Noto adds: “Summvs is a reflection on essentiality. After working with Ensemble Modern, we wanted to go back to the starting point: piano and electronics, stripped down.”
Their live set was not a performance, but a sculpture of space. “I’m interested in what happens at the edges,” says Nicolai. “I design sonic thresholds, not fullness. The empty space is part of the composition.”
Sakamoto adds with his usual sobriety: “Silence is the purest sound.”
The audience that night listened in apnea. No one coughed. No phone rang. Listening became a form of collective, almost religious attention. A miracle possible only when the artist gives up performance and becomes a medium.
The setup was minimal: “After the ‘Insen’ tour, many expected certain elements: the wide screen, the white floor, the piano on the left, my desk on the right. It’s a matter of sound design, but also spatial design.”, says Alva Noto.
In a time dominated by noise and haste, that event left a mark. Not only musical, but human. Sound became silence. And in silence, the shape of empathy emerged.
🎥 Full interview with Sakamoto and Alva Noto, recorded a few hours before the live at Teatro Morlacchi:
I Was There – Memories from the Audience
“Everything was perfect that night. No one spoke. There was respect, almost a religious tension.
I’ve never experienced such listening again.”
— anonymous attendee, 2011
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This article was created with the support of AI tools, used for content organization and text optimization. The sources, ideas and materials come from the Dancity Association’s archive and activities.