DNK-Days / The John Cage Project: 20 artists (composers/musicians/poets/movement artists and myself with video) perform 2 minutes parts during a collective random composition based on John Cage’s score. This is the part I made for the event. We performed the piece twice in different constellations. Steim/De appel july 2018.

Experimental documentary / dance film. Video (2019) 26 min. / Language no problem.

A film by Isabelle Vigier and Valentina Campora, based on a dance piece by Valentina Campora, with music by Andy Moor and the participation of Elio Campora Moor.

Private Vimeo link | Password on demand

Safe Piece originated in choreographer Valentina Campora’s personal experience of trying to combine her artistic work with being a mother. Having to care for a baby and at the same time trying to continue creating new work posed a personal challenge. As an experiment, she began exploring the possibilities of dancing with her baby. In the course of four years Campora has created eight performances, all of them including herself, her young son and his father, Campora’s partner Andy Moor, a musician himself, playing for a small audience. Each performance was filmed by visual artist Isabelle Vigier. Vigier used the video material to create the fim ‘Safe Piece’, and later the installation of the same name.

In the film we see how displacing a family from the home onto the stage allows for the emergence of new alleys of communication and play. Multi-faceted, evolving relationships occur between parents and child within the realm of music and dance. The film proposes an image of the passing of time as a positive, profoundly generative force: seeing a little boy growing up provides both a pace and an emotional frame to the film. The concepts of potential, loss, and realization are embedded in it.

Safe Piece publicly addresses private questions which are deeply relevant because they deal with fundamentals: the right to work, and the right to raise the future members of our society – in a social space where having children is often experienced as a limitation in terms of professional development. Safe Piece is an investigation into passion for making art and making a family.

THE MAKERS

Valentina Campora, an Italian performer and choreographer based in Amsterdam, NL, initiated the project and formed the team around it. She formulated the original concept and produced the live performances. She has developed the concept in close collaboration with Isabelle Vigier — culminating in the film and the installation of the same name.

Andy Moor (The Ex) is a well known musician improviser and composer of film music. He has worked in various projects with Campora as a live musician, composer, and often an advisor (for example ‘Clessidra, One to One’, ‘Identicality’ and in ‘A Divine Threesome’ by Gabriella Maiorino). Moor is Campora’s partner, and the father of their son. He is also responsible for the soundtrack of the installation version of ‘Safe Piece’.

Elio Chaly Campora Moor is Valentina Campora and Andy Moor’s child. He was seven month old at the beginning of the project.

Isabelle Vigier a french visual artist and designer uses video in her installations and also works for the stage, in her collaborations with choreographers and composers. Vigier and Moor have worked together on many projects in the past, including the live performance ‘Le Journaliste’, but also through the music label Unsounds, of which they are co-founders. Vigier and Campora started their collaboration with Safe Piece and have gone on to work on more projects together.

SAFE PIECE public presentations

Safe Piece (installation)

Movement Exposed Gallery Space, Utrecht, NL, sept/oct 2020

Safe Piece (film)

Suture Festival, Soven, Germany, August 2021

Rogue Dancer Festival, Vancouver, Canada, January 2021

Official Selection InShadow Festival, Lisbon December 20 Nov/13 Dec 2020

Premiére, Music dance Performance Festival, OT301, Amsterdam, june 2019

(Work in progress and performance) Teatro Akropolis Dance Festival Genova, IT, November 2018

(Work in progress) Performing arts Festival, Theater Frascati, Amsterdam, NL, 2018

(Work in progress ) Why Not Festival, Amsterdam, NL, 2017

FILM CREDITS

a film by Isabelle Vigier and Valentina Campora

Réalisation: Isabelle Vigier

Based on the performance ‘Safe Piece’ by Valentina Campora

Performers: Valentina Campora and Andy Moor with Elio Campora Moor

Music: Andy Moor

Cameras: Isabelle Vigier, Hanneke Kuijpers

Editing: Isabelle Vigier

Color calibration: Sergio Gridelli

Sound mastering: Andy Moor

Additional music: Temusewo Mukasa Uganda Harp ‘Okwagala omulungi kwesengereza’

Filmed on location in Amsterdam (NL): OT301, Leine&Roebana Studio, Zaal 100, De Balie, Plantage Dok, De Roode Biooscop and at Le Theatre de St. Nazaire (FR)

Production: Valentina Campora

Made with support by AFK Amsterdam Funds for the Arts, Theatre De Roode Biooscop and cultural center OT301, Amsterdam

An interactive performance and installation

Watch Utter Trailer

Utter tells a story about the complexities of the mother/child relationship from the perspective of language acquisition in a performance with sound and images. The piece is based on a text and composition by Anne La Berge. She invited me to develop the visual part of the piece, and we involved Marcel Wierckx who in turn helped with the interactive set up that we had envisioned for the piece. The three of us worked artistically on developing Utter, aiming at a format that could be performed live by Anne as well as being an interactive installation. The set includes 6 iPads that run a newly developed app that interacts with a laptop that steers both audio and visual material. Unsounds has published Utter within a collection of digital stories. Utter has been performed in the US, Mexico, New Zealand, and Europe, and will continue to be performed live in the future.

The making of Utter and performance tours can be seen on Anne’s website: here.

Making of 

Anne La Berge – working out our interactive tool – Splendor Amsterdam

At Marcel Wierckx studio, working on software

This project is partially funded by the Creative Industries Funds NL and the Performing Arts Fund NL and supported by Volsap Foundation, Unsounds and Splendor Amsterdam. The video trailer is by Sergio Gridelli, 2016. Mark Marijnissen helped develop the unique software.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

“Many lullabies, sweet as they commonly seem, often reflect dark and sinister meaning. Vigier’s selection from various traditional poems develops throughout the work alongside increasingly more obscure imagery. She delves into the darkness of the night, paying homage to the legends, terrors and the eventual peace that often settles across the night’s span. These images are accompanied by haunting subtleties in the soundtrack, such as the glass bead mobile shimmering beneath the unrelenting violin arpeggios in Kate Moore’s Broken Rosary.”  – Music Trust Australia, review by Tamara Kholer 02-2020

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 A work based on the deconstruction of the lyrics in lullabies of various heritages. Re-contextualizing words and images, I composed an abstract berceuse, around the mysteries, the fears and the peace that come with the act of falling asleep. This project is companion to the program called ‘Close your eyes and I’ll close mine’ that toured around Australia in 2012, with Anna McMichael, violin, Tamara-Anna Cislowska, piano, Isabelle Vigier, video. It is published on Unsounds, 2014.

Wear-on installation playing with movement (motion and wind) and impact on the street image. The Other Wind Cape is a garment that features a 3 dimensional body shape on its back, that inflates, moves and dances in the wind. The silhouette becomes a double body, two bodies back to back, as imaginary companions, or shadows maybe. Light weight waterproof nylon, limited edition.

The Other Wind Cape has integrated the Deste Fashion Collection in 2012, as part of a selection of 7 art and fashion projects made in 2011. The capsule 2012 was curated by Athina Rachel Tsangari for the Deste foundation.

view video: on a windy day

 additional credits

Exposure

Contact me about this project : mail me

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Diptych window projection, Ateliers Claus, Brussels 2011. Video 15′ looped, based on original material filmed for video projections in choreographer Gabrielle Uetz’s dance piece ‘KIZ’, and featuring dancer Jaime Llopis. www.lesateliersclaus.com