Experimental documentary / dance film. Video (2019) 26 min.

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

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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.

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.

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.

SAFE PIECE public presentations

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 / (as Work in progress and performance) Teatro Akropolis Dance Festival Genova, IT, November 2018 / Performing arts Festival, Theater Frascati, Amsterdam, NL, 2018 / Why Not Festival, Amsterdam, NL, 2017

FILM CREDITS

A film by Isabelle Vigier and Valentina Campora. Based on the performance ‘Safe Piece’ by Valentina Campora. Réalisation: Isabelle Vigier. Performers: Valentina Campora and Andy Moor with Elio and Milo Campora Moor and . Music: Andy Moor. Cameras: Isabelle Vigier, Hanneke Kuijpers. Editing: Isabelle Vigier. Sound mastering: Andy Moor. 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