When Francesca Harper left William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt, where she was a principal dancer for six years, and returned to her native New York, she took with her the precious lesson of freedom from all orthodoxy, and a profound sense of teamwork in which each individual is called upon to express himself and be his own creator. Harper learned choreography with Forsythe, as well as singing and acting. And it was in Frankfurt that the Afro-American dancer, who studied at the American Ballet, Joffrey Ballet and Alvin Ailey schools, and grew up in the multi-cultural New York scene, had the opportunity not only to explore different art forms but to reflect on her personal history as a black woman and dancer.
As she studied the use of the voice in singing and acting, Harper began her career as a free-lance artist, performing in many Broadway productions: Fosse, The Producers, The Frogs, The Color Purple, and Sweet Charity (where she played Helen, the antagonist to Molly Ringwald, touring throughout the United States).
As a choreographer, after her European debut with an evening-length work created for the Holland Festival, Harper choreographed works for Ailey II and Tanz Graz in particular. Harper is now a conceptual pop artist, as she likes to describe herself, a choreographer but also the author of songs and texts. In 2005, she founded her own company, The Francesca Harper Project, which gathers a group of artists from various disciplines, with which she expresses her own artistic vision creating performances that range from pure dance to conceptual art and music.
For her debut at the Venice Biennale, Francesca Harper will present a new work inspired by the theme of beauty: The Fragile Stone Theory: 2K8 / Interactive Feast is the title of the evening-performance featuring original songs, video images and dance. The idea is to explore the relationship of a person to beauty, freedom and the anxiety that a woman feels as an artist in her relationship with beauty. An intimate journey through contentment and frustration, perfection and imperfection.
