Francesca Santamaria is an Italian artist based in Rome whose practice spans dance and the wider field of performing arts. Her research explores performative logics and their implications through the moving body, with particular attention to its possibilities and limits. Trained at Balletto di Roma, Santamaria has worked with the CZD2 ensemble and as an independent dancer, collaborating with choreographers including Moritz Ostrushnjak, Alexandra Pirici, Amos Ben-Tal, Roberto Zappalà and Manfredi Perego. In 2022, she joined CIMD’s three-year Incubator for Future Choreographers programme in Milan, while completing an MA in Writing and Production for Performing Arts and Media at Sapienza University of Rome, where she focused her thesis on dance dramaturgy. Her choreographic works COME SOPRAVVIVERE IN CASO DI DANNI PERMANENTI, GOOD VIBES ONLY (beta test) and GOOD VIBES ONLY (the great effort) have been presented at festivals and venues in Italy and internationally, including Vetrina della giovane danza d’autore, Operaestate, Romaeuropa, Bolzano Danza and MILANoLTRE. In 2026, she is an Aerowaves #Twenty26 Artist.
Good Vibes Only (beta test) works on the logic of endless scrolling as its point of departure. Francesca Santamaria brings the world of viral dance videos onto the stage and into her body: the Wednesday Addams choreography, TikTok challenges, dance trends, pop hits and other instantly recognisable fragments of online culture. With each new command, her body switches with remarkable precision into the next image. Dance becomes a sequence of formats layered one on top of another, moving ever faster and leaving no room to pause. Presiding over the action is a computer-generated voice that dictates the performer’s next move while promising the audience another dose of content.
In this peculiar version of a dance “free trial”, the stage becomes a laboratory of algorithmic entertainment, where performativity, visibility and consumption intersect. Santamaria deliberately maintains a sense of distance: the movement is impersonal, almost robotic, while positivity becomes a formula that can be endlessly reproduced. As the trial draws to an end, the performance extends beyond the stage into the digital realm—the body becomes an advertisement, while a QR code becomes a gateway into an economy of attention, support and reward. Good Vibes Only (beta test) is a witty and slightly unsettling game with what makes dance visible today, how content is produced, and what remains of the body once it becomes part of an endless stream of digital consumption.