«HI lived in Turin for 19 years and I passed through Porta Palazzo a million times but I had never stopped at Civic Zero: a great gap that I am happy, today, to have filled». Levant has entered the spaces of the center managed by Save The Children in the Piedmontese capital for a project, carried out in collaboration with Lavazza Red Quality: “The Italy I would like”. The singer of I live he thus met the boys and girls guests of the centre, minors or foreign minors at risk of deviance, marginalization and social exclusion. And he talked to them about anger and pain, of music and redemption, of justice and hope. She listened to their stories and told her own.
Levante with the guys from CivicoZero, Save The Children center in Turin (press office photo).
Levante meets the guys from CivicoZero in Turin
«It was wonderful», says the Sicilian Claudia Lagona, aka Levante, who moved from Palagonia to Turin at the age of 14. “The stories I heard moved me so much. They are stories of minors without families who wandered and slept on the streets for months before finding welcome and support in CivicoZero. Incredible stories, that for the first time in my life I was able to really know. Reading about it is really something else».
“I too have known anger and pain. She helped me the music »
The boys were curious about her and her life as an artist. “I don’t want to compare my drama with theirs but I too have known anger and pain. I lost my father I was nine years old: he went away very slowly, a very great suffering. Then I have left my land as a little girl, and then she startedadolescence: an atomic bomb. My luck was to discover in me a talent, of being able to channel anger and pain in music: in writing and in composition».
This is what Levante also advised the boys of CivicoZero: to cultivate themselves, to look for channels to give vent to suffering in an Italy, and in a world, increasingly complicated and unjust. This is the meaning of Civic Zero, a center that provides basic initial reception services. But what aims above all at social inclusion and integration. At work, of course, and through work to personal fulfilment. An ambitious dream, in a country that often conceives of migrants only as a problem that it would be better to get rid of, and quickly.
What is justice in today’s Italy
«I became the mother of Alma and 10 days later the war broke out in Ukraine: lo state of vulnerability which concerns, I believe, every parent, has grown in me beyond measure». If the situation was not easy, between conflicts, climate crisis and social injustice, it has certainly not improved.
«Above all, I wish for my daughter a just world, and there is no justice without the community. Giusto is a world that leaves no one behind, which starts from the least. And therefore that he cares about these guys, first of all ». Hence his passionate participation in the Save The Children and Lavazza project.
Levante, from postpartum depression to new balance
Of anxiety for the future, and also of a form of postpartum depression, Levante spoke openly. «An uneasiness amplified by hormones and totally new and unexpected emotions». Now the balance is restored. «But I’m very distant from the me before: becoming a parent is becoming vulnerable. It’s always living in uncertainty, fear and hope that everything will be fine. But it is also always being travelling, and it is a beautiful journey».
A break of solitude for a mother
A journey that, like every mother, even Levante would like to pause sometimes. “Sometimes I just need a coffee, maybe a couple, drunk alone, when Alma is out with the nanny. A ritual that begins with the gesture of preparing the moka, listening to the right music », says the singer, who describes herself as the ideal testimonial of a brand like Lavazza. “I even have a coffee craving on my right shoulder!”
The Levante summer tour, from Milan to the Verona Arena
But certainly life in the East offers her many spaces for detachment from her motherhood. For example this summer, when she will face an important tour: «But I hope to take my daughter with me as much as possible», she says. A long summer run, from MiAmi, in Milan, on May 28thto September 27, the final date: at the Verona Arena. «Just the thought gives me a frightening emotion: it is a sacred place for music and culture in Italy. She will be respectful.” Meanwhile, go-ahead for assumptions about possible surprises, and duets, on stages throughout Italy.
The duet with Paola and Chiara for Lovemidai
Let’s hope Paola and Chiara, with whom Levante sang Lovemidai (song included in their latest album Forever, out May 12)? «Ah, at 13 I was in love with that song: when I heard about their remake album I immediately applied for Lovemidai. It reminds me of that time, when I was a weird little girl with a skirt over her pants and boots even in summer. At the time I listened to sophisticated music, my 3 older brothers passed it to me, I loved the Verdenas and then, yes, Paola and Chiara».
A past and very distant time? “Not so much. He doesn’t know how many things it brings to mind a daughter. Alma makes me remember everything».
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