Voice & Movement
creation with songs

The mission of 'The Francesca Harper Project' company is to raise a sense of diversity and individualty.

Each participant will choose 1-3 songs. Each day Francesca will conduct vocal exercises and will create combinations. The participants will then take the combinations and songs and create 1-3 pieces incorporating the movement and songs.

Over the course of the workshop the dancers utilise the improvisation techniques and incorporate them with vocal technique to develop their own work. There will be a showing at the end of the workshop so people can share their growth process with each other.


Forsythe Repertory

Francesca Harper, a former Principal dancer with William Forsythe and Artistic Director of The Francesca Harper Project leads a Forsythe repertory workshop.

The workshop will consist of learning Forsythe improvisation technologies and incorporating them into structured  tasks. Harper will also teach Forsythe repertory and then infuse the information attained through the structured improvisation.

The Forsythe Repertory workshop will leave the student with an enhanced sense of power to make their own artistic choices that they can carry into their lives. The students will leave with a heightened sense of attack, dynamics, and expression. They will confront and dissolve the concept of conformity through radically informed, independent choices and ideas.


Francesca Harper
A statuesque beauty who is a dancer-actor-singer- recording artist-choreographer-director has graced the stage appearing with Dance Theater of Harlem, Frankfurt Ballet, Ms. Harper approaches ballet technique with keen sensibility to the magic of performance beyond technical steps. In her workshops she supports improvisation, movement development, diligence and self–motivation. After performing with the Dance Theater of Harlem, she danced as a principal in William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt from 1994-1999. Since returning to the States in 2000, Harper has performed in several Broadway productions including "Fosse", "The Producers", "The Frogs", and "The Color Purple". She played the role of Helene opposite Molly Ringwald in a national tour of "Sweet Charity", and the role of Judith originated by Judith Jamison in a revival of "Sophisticated Ladies". Harper’s choreographic career began while still in Germany, where she choreographed a full evening work for the Holland Dance Festival. She has since choreographed works for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Tanz Graz, and her own company The Francesca Harper Project, which has become the platform for her own artistic vision: classical dance forms deconstructed and fused with cutting-edge text, music, film and video.

She premiered her critically-acclaimed one-woman show "The Fragile Stone Theory" at the 2002 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Francesca’s latest commissioned work, "Documotion : ONE – Rave", was requested to be performed at the 50th Anniversary of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center at World Famous Apollo Theater by Judith Jamison. TheFrancesca Harper Project season highlights include performances at Harlem Stage, Bloomberg Culture Series, Central Park Summerstage and Venice Biennale.

Most recently, Francesca was appointed as an Adjunct Professor at New York University, a teacher for The Ailey School and the Fordham BFA Program, and a teacher and choreographer Tony Award Director Susan Batson at the Susan Batson Studio. Francesca also enjoyed working as a ballet consultant for the feature film, "Black Swan," by Darren Aronofsky, starring Natalie Portman, who went on to win an Oscar. Please visit www.francescaharper.com for more infomation.