Corpo e gesto nella musica contemporanea: dal teatro strumentale alle applicazioni digitali

Abstract

This article examines the evolving role of the performer’s body and gesture in art music from the early 20^th century avant-garde to today’s contemporary practices. It highlights how composers and performers progressively transformed the body from a neutral medium into an active agent of musical expression. Pioneering experiments by figures like John Cage and Mauricio Kagel blurred the boundary between concert music and theater, giving rise to instrumental theater wherein physical actions and visual elements became integral to composition and performance. Subsequent composers – such as Luciano Berio, Sylvano Bussotti, Georges Aperghis, Vinko Globokar and Sofija Gubajdulina – expanded this paradigm by integrating corporeal choreography, extended vocal techniques, and theatrical gestures into musical works, effectively merging sound and sight into a unified artistic language. The article situates these developments within a theoretical framework of “embodiment” and gestural sonority, emphasizing that musical meaning increasingly arises from the performer’s embodied actions as much as from sound. In parallel, it explores how recent digital and AI technologies further this trajectory: interactive systems and machine learning now enable real-time dialogue between human gestures and computers, positioning artificial agents as responsive co-performers. The study concludes that contemporary music practices have fundamentally embraced corporeality, dissolving traditional boundaries between music, theater, and dance. This evolution not only enriches the performative and symbolic dimensions of music, but also raises new conceptual questions regarding the hybridization of different genres and the transition from “concert” to “performative event”.