“Noi si fa i cori”

The musical practices connected to football supporting have been scarcely investigated within the Italian scholarly community; on the other hand, they have recently attracted the attention of international researchers who have pointed out how, especially for certain kinds of supporters (known in Italy as ultras), making music together provides a crucial platform for building and expressing a collective identity. Resulting from an ethnographic survey of the phonosphere of the Artemio Franchi stadium in Florence and the main ultras group of ACF Fiorentina, this paper offers an interpretation of the supporters’ practices in terms of participatory performance, as in the framework devised by Thomas Turino. The core elements of the ultras’ music making (performative settings, sonic features, musical repertory, forms and functions of “fare cori” – chanting) are examined with regards to the different social scenarios involved. The investigation focuses especially on the “curva” context, i.e. the stands of seating where the ultras gather in the stadium for the home match: this is the situation where the most complex and ambiguous aspects of the supporters’ participatory action come to the surface, the performance turning somewhat towards a presentational frame.