Performance and visual artist, dancer, teacher, director, world traveler and Madame Zingara’s creative vision and inspiration.Valentina was born in Milan the year that the Beatles broke up, Janis Joplin died and the floppy disc was invented.
Becoming disenchanted with the superficial nature of the industry, Valentina teamed up with independent writer, Betti Marenko and their collaboration gave birth to in.sect.corp, “a permanent laboratory of research and documentation of the body’s explorative journeys into the unknown”. After a journey of self-discovery to India and Zanzibar, Valentina finally arrived in Cape Town in 1997 where she established a base and from which she has worked ever since.
She regularly travels abroad to collaborate on various projects and in Cape Town Valentina has been involved in both the movie and commercial industries as well as collaborated with several local productions and artists, such as award-winning film maker, Kali van der Merwe.
In 2006/7, together with Richard Griffin, Valentina conceptualized and directed Madame Zingara’s very first show, Arabesque. She went on to direct Rosario, as well as Aphrodisia, currently showing at the Theatre of Dreams in Durban.