Art, science, and nature are the key words of Roberto Paci Dalò’s oeuvre. In defining his own work Roberto coined the definitions: media dramaturgy and theatre of listening. He frequently creates his works in various fields, further investigating different aspects of perception of the same material. Thus scene and music works often become radio pieces or interactive sound/video installations and online projects.

Co-founder and director of the performing arts group and cultural space Giardini Pensili (Rimini, Italy). Between 2006 and 2016 founding director of Velvet Factory – space for the arts (Rimini). His work has won him international admiration from among others, John Cage, Giya Kancheli, Robert Ashely, John Zorn and Aleksandr Sokurov. Recipient of the Berlin DAAD Fellowship, member of the Internationale Heiner Müller Gesellschaft Berlin and the British Cartographic Society.
Parallel to his music and stage work – he wrote, composed and directed about 50 theatre and music-theatre works presented worldwide – is the creation of a body of innovative film and video works regularly screened in international festivals. His hörspiele & radioworks are produced by the main European broadcasting corporations. His installations and visual arts projects are presented worldwide in museums, galleries, site specific, and the public space.

In addition to customary venues (theatres, concert halls, museums…), the pactice of site-specific is one of the most important characteristic of his work: experiencing places to transform them, often with the people who live them (including ghosts in ghost towns). Relationship with people is therefore important to establish bonds that—though stemming from artistic practice—may also transcend by creating collaboration and participation on various levels.

Curator of international art projects based on telecommunication systems. Between 1991 and 1998 founding director of LADA L’Arte dell’Ascolto, the international radio + festival which became a label in 2004. Creator of Radio Lada web art radio in 1995. Between 1999 and 2001 creator and curator of Itaca: the electronic stage of the Teatro di Roma (with the collaboration of Mario Martone). Artistic director of TACTUS radio festival and BIOMA festival musiche radicali (both in San Marino).

Paci Dalò is active as performer (clarinets / electronics / sampler) deeply involved in collaborations and improvised music. In 1987 he created in Jerusalem the “Roberto Paci Dalò Klezmer Orchestra” devoted to the presentation of Jewish music with a special emphasis on the Chassidic one and its relationships with the contempory scene.

A pioneer in the use of Internet and in integrating analogical and digital technologies, his work areas include: radio transmission, telematic networks, persistence of classical tradition in contemporaneity, psychoacoustics, robotics, cybernetics, man-machine interaction, real-time sound-image elaboration, sound cartography., music (from early music to new stuff) on stage, persistence of classical tradition in present time, image and sound relationship, digital culture, interaction, body languages, social design, projects for the public space & site-specific, collaborative & participatory projects.

Among his geographic references, some areas of the world (and their cultures) such as Armenia and Georgia (Transcaucasia, in general), Mitteleuropa, North American deserts, Jerusalem. His systematic visits to sites of worship (in particular Armenian and Orthodox Christian churches, synagogues, and mosques) are part of his practice, while a particular relationship with the Jewish universe acts as a constant counterpoint to his oeuvre.

Roberto Paci Dalò has presented his works in traditional venues (Kunsthalle Vienna, Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica Linz, Opera of Vienna, etc.), as well as in unusual sites: the Adriatic shore, with fifteen kilometers of sound diffusion (Publiphono); the Charterhouse of San Martino, one of the most important Neapolitan baroque churches (L’assedio delle ceneri); a building of industrial archeology at Graz (the rave Trance Bakxai); a former Canadian Masonic lodge (Western Front Vancouver, Local & Long Distance); an opera theatre in Rimini, closed in 1943 and reopened for only two nights (De bello Gallico); armored cars from World War II (Deutsch-Russisches Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Schwarzes Licht); a Ventennio’s architecture icon (Palazzo della Civiltà del lavoro Rome-EUR, Metamorfosi); web (creation in 1995 of Radio Lada, one of the first web radios).

Border breaking collaborations include musicians Kronos Quartet, Alvin Curran, Yasuhiro Morinaga, Tom Cora, Philip Jeck, Mouse on Mars, Llorenç Barber, David Moss, Scanner, Terry Riley, Jon Rose, Amelia Cuni, Werner Durand, Peter Courtemanche; poets and writers Predrag Matvejevic’, Tonino Guerra, Levon Zekiyan, Gabriele Frasca, Patrizia Valduga; philosopher Giorgio Agamben; visual artists Richard Long, Robert Adrian X, Maurizio Cattelan, Oreste Zevola, Paolo Rosa; architects Stefano Boeri and 5+1; dramaturg Benedetta Bronzini; photographers Guido Guidi, Roberto Masotti; dancers Caterina Sagna, Adriana Borriello; designers Paolo Tassinari, Leonardo Sonnoli.

His collaborations with writers & poets are countless. Among the others: Yehuda Amichai, Samih al-Qasim, Lello Voce, Elisa Biagini, Mariangela Gualtieri, Tonino Guerra, Jolanda Insana, Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Tiziano Scarpa, Patrizia Valduga, Sara Ventroni, Franco Buffoni. He has also worked on texts by Walter Benjamin, Ingeborg Bachmann, William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Euripides, Antonio Gramsci, Daniel Varujan, Giacomo Leopardi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and especially Heiner Müller and Emily Dickinson.
He directed actors like: Roberto Latini, Arnoldo Foà, Umberto Orsini, Franco Branciaroli, Silvio Orlando, Roberto Latini, Marcello Sambati, Enzo Moscato, Massimo Popolizio, Sandro Lombardi, Anna Bonaiuto, a.o.

Paci Dalò has been professor at the University of Siena (Italy) teaching Media Dramaturgy and New Media. Other collaborations include: Domus Academy Milan, La Sapienza Rome, University of Bologna, UBC Vancouver, University of Newcastle / CultureLab, Aarhus University (DK). He’s actually professor of Exhibit Design at the University of San Marino where is founding director of Usmaradio – Research Centre for Radiophonic Studies

Artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Foundation (San Francisco), Ars Electronica FutureLab (Linz), Western Front (Vancouver), STEIM (Amsterdam), The Watermill Center NY, Montévidéo and GMEM (Marseille) and Maison du Spectacle La Bellone (Bruxelles), a.o.

Collaborations with curators include Filiberto Menna, Alanna Heiss, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Manuela Gandini, Lorenzo Mango, Valerio Dehò, Julia Draganovic, Maria Savarese, Achille Bonito Oliva, Marco Pierini, Katerina Gregos, Heidi Grundmann, Monica Bosaro, Gottfried Hattinger, Davide Quadrio, Francesca Girelli, Pietro Gaglianò, Martina Cavallarin.

Publications include the record Japanese Girls at the Harbor (Concrete Tokyo 2012) with Yasuhiro Morinaga.The Maya Effect (L’Arte dell’Ascolto 2009) with Scanner; Ye Shanghai (Marsèll 2014), 1915 The Armenian Files (Marsèll 2015).the book- edited together with Emanuele Quinz – Millesuoni. Deleuze, Guattari e la musica elettronica (Cronopio 2006, 2008) which includes contributions by DJ Spooky, Guy-Marc Hinant, Achim Szepanski, Christopher Cox, a.o.

Roberto has been the artistic director of Wikimania2016 Esino Lario (Lake Como, Italy).

Paci Dalò’s galleries and museums’ work is presented by Mazzoli Berlin/Modena.

Roberto was born in Rimini and has been living in Berlin, Rome, Naples, Lake Garda with residencies in Vancouver B.C. and currently lives and works on the Rimini’s hills.