Visual Art
Francesca has painted and illustratrated walls, canvases, faces, bodies, costumes, theater and dance sets, publications, stories and poetry on private and corporate commission.
Washington, DC Projects
In 2001, Francesca received a Small Project Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts to create "NO STANDING ANYTIME", an exhibit of paintings that sought to capture the movement, spirit, passion and diversity of dance using various mediums. This exhibit was displayed at various venues in the DC area including Utopia Gallery, Cosi, Lombardi Cancer Center, Sheridan School and Dance Place. Many of the works are now in private collections.
Francesca collaborated with choreographer Connie Fink in 2003 to create artwork for Connie's full evening length dance performance "Short Stories/Then is Now" at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at University of Maryland.
In 2003/2004, Francesca received a Young Artists Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts to create another exhibit "Music to the Eye" in which she collaborated with Washington DC composers and musicians to create paintings which were in turn used as visual 'musical scores' which musicians in turn used for an improvisation performance. This exhibit was also displayed in various venues in the DC area.
In 2005, Francesca created a set for choreographer Ludovic Jolivet for a performance with CityDance at the Terrace Theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. In 2006, Francesca created a set for Cirque Voila for a national tour. During the 2007 season with BosmaDance, Francesca danced and painted in performance on the bodies of other dancers in a short work by Israeli guest choreographer, Ofra Idel Lipshitz which premiered at the Millennium Stage, Kennedy Center.
Los Angeles Projects
Francesca created "ToGetHer," an Interdisciplinary Performance Piece that premiered at Highways Performance Space in March, 2016. ToGetHer, a multimedia work explores the before and after of a lifetime of moments between two people. ToGetHer includes movement and original artwork, music and text, which, when combined, create a unique amalgam of visual, aural and kinesthetic experiences. The feel of this work alternates between an atmosphere of time-lapse and slow motion moments underscored by unique movement, which illustrates the story through connected vignettes. The soundtrack punctuates the different movement vocabularies and the artwork is woven into the performance through video projections.
Most recently, Francesca created visual art as part of her full evening length interdisciplinary work, "The Immured Woman," exploring paradoxical and complex themes of “woman,” creation, and procreation. Inspired by a Romanian legend of a pregnant woman enclosed within the walls of a monastery, Francesca’s work fuses dance with visual art, film projections and sound/music/text in a seamless creative response to questions surrounding such themes as immortality and sacrifice. Art creation becomes a metaphor for procreation within this kinesthetic investigation of womanhood and individual artistic expression. Francesca provides original sound, visual art and digital projections together with her choreographic imprint.
Arts Education
Francesca taught Kindergarten at the Sheridan School in Washington, DC from 2003 - 2013, where, inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach, she encouraged and guided the students in the creation of long-term exploratory artistic projects. She now offers private workshops for young artists ages 5 years and up.
