Liscio Got Me Hardcore is an exhibition curated by Ragazzi di Strada investigating the forgotten scene of Liscio (or ‘musica da ballo romagnola’) from the previously unexplored perspective of design, architecture and of its cross-subcultural and social trajectories which unfolded on the dancefloors of Emilia-Romagna from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The exhibition, which also featured set design by Ragazzi di Strada, was the outcome of a three-year in situ and archive  research. It bridged archival ephemera with artist installation by Raissa Pardini (previously at work with the likes of Gucci, Nadia Lee Cohen, IDEA Books, Apple, Maneskin, IDLES, and more) and Michele Galluzzo (Logo Irl, Fantasia Type, Progetto Grafico, Italian Pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale 2023), as well as two textile works by Ragazzi di Strada themselves.

The exhibition ran in September and October 2023 in Milan, hosted within the space of Galera San Soda, art gallery located inside the Grattacielo Ina by Piero Bottoni (1953-1958), a landmark of Milanese architecture with which its blue and pink tile mosaic reflected the interiors of Liscio’s venues.

On the occasion of the exhibition a 400-page catalogue featuring the the visual and theoretical outcome of three-year research into Liscio was also released. See more here.

The concept

Liscio, originally born in the mid-1800s and identified as the sound of the Northern Italian countryside working-class, from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s experienced an unprecedented stage of revival which gave the genre a massive international notoriety, as well as triggering exciting aesthetic and musical crossovers which unfolded on the dancefloors of their designated ballrooms: the so-called and cult ‘balere’.

Through rare and unpublished archive material (photographs, vinyl, magazines, stickers, club planimetries, ephemera), and artist’s installations, the exhibition aims to offer a new interpretation of Liscio as a ‘lost’ subculture of Italian history and to celebrate the importance of community and shared ecstasy on the dancefloor as a way of searching for an indigenous identity in a world that, at the time of the documents collected, was beginning to become increasingly globalised under the influence of American liberalism.

At the core of the three-year research project is a reflection on the liminal state Liscio always experienced, simultaneously disregarded by dominant pop music and denigrated by the punk and new wave underground. Yet, its venues became a space of musical and subcultural contamination, hosting a variety of artists ranging from Liscio to new wave, from disco to cabaret.

This is well-captured in the documents, which offer rare and often unpublished shots of international stars including Grace Jones, Ray Charles, Tina Turner playing back to back with Italian legends such as Vasco Rossi, Raffaella Carrà, performer-cum-pornstar Cicciolina, as well as, of course, Liscio orchestras.

Such crossovers consequently inspired a reflection on the similarities between Liscio and other geo-specific scenes that, in the same years, used their own sound and venues as forms of communitarian resistance in opposition to the mainstream culture of disco music and of roaring American liberalism. These include the soundsystem culture of the Jamaican diaspora, northern soul in the north of England, but also Afrobeat and Zamrock in post-colonial Africa and gospel, which in the United States was blending with soul and funk, offering messages of hope to an entire community who was seeking for socio-political freedom.

Such a feeling of conceptually remixed ecstasy experienced on the dancefloor was, hence, an inspiration behind the title of the project which references Marck Leckey’s 1999 videoart work Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore.

This concept was at the core of the two installations by Ragazzi di Strada. The first, a flag symbolising the dancers’ social unity and bearing a take on the lyrics of ‘Romagna mia, Romanga in fiore’ (Liscio’s defining composition), revisited as ‘Romagna mia, Romagna hardcore’. This was combined with the use of the elusive and non-codified Old England-style typeface adopted in the very same years by Afro-American teenagers to decorate the tops of their crews.

The second, a bowling bag reminiscent of those carried by northern soul dancers in 1970s northern England ballrooms covered in custom-made patches designed in collaboration with Raissa Pardini and operating an iconographic crossover between Liscio and northern soul. This was aimed to highlight how in both the scenes dancers carried bags with dancing shoes, towels and a change of shirt.

Said cross-subucltural and socio-political crossovers were also at the core of the installations conceived by contemporary artists Raissa Pardini e Michele Galluzzo, two limited edition offset prints, each investigating liscio’s cultural and iconographic heritage according to the two artists’ sensibilities. Browse the gallery below for the visual references.