Federico Savini
«For the generation that is 18-20 years old today, smooth music is what thirty years ago we would have defined as “alternative” music. Paradoxically it is a form of underground, in a standardized scenario that is very far from folklore like today’s. In trap you can see rebellious attitudes but in reality it is absolutely mainstream music. Smooth and folk music, on the other hand, if you are twenty years old today, are practically like punk at the end of the 70s! It is a provocation but not too much that of Giordano Sangiorgi, in fact the creator of the Santa Balera orchestra and of the project that revolves around it, and who, almost three months after Sanremo, proposes dates around Romagna the possibility of tracing a very first assessment of an experience that literally brought back the ballroom music to the homes of all Italians during the last Sanremo festival, thanks to a performance that saw the Gen Z ballroom orchestra playing at the Ariston Romagna Mia, for the 70 years of the song and in the company of Mirko Casadei. Which was also useful in shedding some light on the flood victims of Romagna.
Loris Casadei, Kevin Cimatti, Alessia Dal Cielo, Angela De Leo and Anna De Leo, Christian Di Giacomo, Marika Lombini, Carlotta Marchesini, Andrea Medri, Matilde Montana, Riccardo Monti, Nicolò Quercia, Samuele Sangiorgi and the DJ played at the Ariston Martina Gaetano (Cimatti, Monti and the De Leo sisters are from Faenza, Sangiorgi is from Fognano), on stage with the dancers Christian Ermeti, Elisa Fuchi, Francesco Amati, Micol Curzi, Matteo Carghini, Rachele Morri, Edoardo Silvi, Beatrice Biondi, Mattia Bonci and Alice Nicoletti.
And now the live dates are starting to arrive for them. «The next ones will be on May 1st in Savignano sul Rubicone, a very important center for smooth racing – explains Giordano Sangiorgi -. Then on May 18th in Faenza in a concert one year after the flood, on June 1st at the Esp in Ravenna, on the 14th at the Liscio Street Parade in Rimini, on the 15th at the Santerno Fair in Imola, on the 16th at the racecourse in Cesena, on 21st July at the Comacchio Camping Festival, on 18th August at the Gourmet festival in Reda, on 23rd August in Massa Lombarda, on the 25th in Rimini at the Fair, then in Meldola and other dates Cesena, Gatteo, Bologna, Forli, Faenza. ».
Just live music or is there more?
«There will be other initiatives, starting from the numerous television appearances expected in May on Tv2000, while on 22 April we organised, at Cosascuola in Forlì where the children rehearse, a masterclass for young people on Romagna folklore, with a few dozen participants, with lots of smooth ballroom masters and in short a true meeting of passions, talents and generations”.
To make a very first assessment of an experience that really materialized a moment before Sanremo, is the Santa Balera orchestra, to date, the same as the one we saw at Sanremo?
«Yes, the lineup is stable with 8-10 permanent members and a total roster of 15 members who can rotate and integrate, to which three new guys have been added in recent weeks. The interest of many young people who call us and would like to join the orchestra is palpable. Obviously we are not talking about large numbers, if we contextualize the fact that these are twenty-year-olds seriously interested in ballroom dancing it is at least a very evident reversal of trend. Let me also say something else: Amadeus, who among other things was born in Ravenna even if he is not strictly from Ravenna, deserves honorary citizenship for the space he gave to the flooded Romagna at the Ariston, thanks also to the mayor’s urging De Pascale, the regional president Bonaccini and the councilor Felicori”.
Does the orchestra have regular rehearsals?
«Yes, once a week in Forlì, in the spaces of Luca Medri’s Cosascuola».
How many of them can already be considered professionals or at least young people seriously interested in a career in this music?
«The kids are aged from 12 to 28, ages which are therefore very different if we talk about professionalism, but I would say that everyone, including very young people, cultivates this ambition. Then those who already move professionally in music, but this applies to everyone, generally not only play smooth, but perhaps also filuzzi, folk in the broadest sense of the term and also pop, in addition to classical music, because we are talking about kids with conservative studies mostly. Some have started their projects in the school environment, but there are quite a few who have independently created realities with which to play and move on the market. They are studious, competent and musically prepared. This should not be surprising, even if many cannot stand the ballroom, to play it as it should requires considerable preparation.”
The Sanremo media exposure of the Santa Balera orchestra could be an opportunity for the entire ballroom sector. Can you see anything concrete?
“In my opinion, yes. Just a couple of days ago, for example, a “Radio Liscio” was created online with Ettore Andenna, while in Milan Ivan Cattaneo organizes a weekly evening with a regular smooth DJ. A festival organizer I spoke to yesterday told me that now he often proposes evenings of ballroom dancing, which obviously don’t always work out, until January it didn’t even cross his mind. They are small but very clear signs of a Sanremo effect that did exist. And knowing the circuit of this music, the positive effect will arrive at least until October.”
In our territory, the participation of the Santa Balera orchestra in the Reda Gourmet festival, which is well attended and capable of giving enough “line” to the Romagna festivals, seems important to me…
«There are veteran orchestras that are reforming, they are returning to play after very difficult years because the traditional evenings are increasing. Then, let’s be clear, we are far from even the scenario of the ’90s, let alone the boom of the ’70s, but especially after Covid this can be considered a small relaunch.”
The anomaly of “young people who play ballroom” remains. We are talking about generations who have not “suffered” this music and therefore probably have less prejudice than their parents and older brothers…
«It is like this, and perhaps there is also something more. My generation and the following one, perhaps a little also the previous one, have cultivated prejudices about smooth music, seen as old music, rather than poor, because anyone who understands a little music clearly sees that behind smooth music there is a lot of self-sacrifice and you need skill to play it. But it’s understandable that he looked old. About ten years ago a process of rediscovery, valorisation and revision of this music began which in my opinion culminated with Extraliscio, who at Mei have christened the new course of holding an evening on this music every year, which has made looking at smooth music as if it were new, and if you like, a paradoxical “oasis of freedom” in a standardized musical scenario. The one with the “alternative world” is a barrier that needed to be broken and now there is a generation that cannot have their parents’ prejudices. I think they get a fresh and passionate image of a music so far from trap and from what they are used to that it is intriguing for them, new in all respects. Those who play smooth music at twenty years of age claim their “diversity”. And this is good for the entire circuit.”
