Ask the Dust is born in 1996 from an idea of the painters Francesco Bonifazi and Ernst Wichmann. Ask the Dust is an open collective with the definite purpose of adding the evocative power of colour, sound and gesture in extemporary performances where free improvisation and desemantization of context exalt the interaction between performers.
The result of this interaction, with an addiction of a video-camera raids connected to a monitor set, creates a disorientation effect caused by a perception's decomposition that is continually stimulated by simultaneous fragments positioned on different spatial planes.

The performance, at the same time attempted and exalted by the absence of previous agreements between executors, represents a sort of unicum that generates single and unrepeatable “events”: the paintings, in which remains an expression's sedimentation of the energy and of the osmosis gushed from “dialogue” between performers; the videotape, a creative “document” of events in which there is a reinterpretation the painting history and a documentation of the plot between graphic sign and music; the subjective and collective memory of presents and their emotions.

In 1998 Graziano Lella begin his partecipation, such as a saxophonist, to the performances of Ask the Dust collective, and in june of the same year played at "Addio alle armi - parole e musica contro la guerra" performance (Palazzo delle Esposizioni – Rome) in support of Amnesty International for the 50 years of Declaration of Human Rights.


Main concerts and festivals:
WebShow - Roma - december 1998
Casinoo - Roma - november 1998
"Addio alle armi - parole e musica contro la guerra" : Palazzo delle Esposizioni - Roma - june 1998
La strada - Roma - may 1998
Cantiere Gustavo Modena - Roma - february 1998