Bios

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Dances We Dance/Performing Ensemble (DWD) was formed in 2020 by Francesca Todesco, with a company of dancers whose purpose is creating new works as well as revive and perform repertory pieces. Our mission includes promoting and preserving the work of Isadora Duncan, creating a new generation of dancers in order to further her artistic and educational principles of movement and dance.

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Artistic Director Francesca Todesco's dance background is deeply ingrained in American Modern Dance, from Isadora Duncan to Anna Sokolow, Humphrey/Limón and others. For this reason a substantial effort is dedicated to supporting, reconstructing and presenting these important works.

Since its debut, DWD has presented two New York seasons, performed in several events and has taught Duncan workshops in the U.S. and abroad.

We are thrilled to join efforts with Joe Williams to explore the deep connections with Delsarte studies in Duncan movement and offer a live sharing, particularly in this magical place, the Duncan's Temple of the Arts.

Francesca Todesco (U.S.A.) lives and trained in New York with a strong focus on the Sokolow, Humphrey-Limón and Duncan techniques, bringing her large experience to dance performance and education. Francesca joined Catherine Gallant/DANCE & Dances by Isadora in 2000 performing extensively and teaching works of Isadora Duncan. Since moving to NY in 1998, she has performed with several choreographers and companies, including Deborah Carr Theatre Dance Ensemble and Rae Ballard’s Thoughts in Motion. For several years, she organized a series of workshops (Historical Modern Dance), inviting master teachers to share their knowledge, including Betty Jones & Fritz Ludin, Jim May, Gail Corbin, and  others. Francesca was a principal dancer with the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble from 2003-2019, and currently helps with archives and assists in the reconstruction of Ms. Sokolow’s repertory. She proudly ran her own children’s program for over 10 years, creating many children dances. She currently teaches Isadora Duncan exploration classes to adults in New York (in-person and online) and abroad and collaborates with Barbara Kane/IDDG in London and Aurélie Berland in Paris. In 2020 she started her own company, Dances We Dance.

www.danceswedance.org - contact: francesca@danceswedance.org.

Joe Williams (U.S.A.) Researching Delsarte’s studies of human behavior and expression since 1995, and teaching since 1997, Joe Williams is currently the world’s leading practitioner of the Delsarte system. He has taught Delsarte’s work at conservatories and conferences around the world, including the Juilliard School, Cincinnati Conservatory, National Center of Dance in Paris. His students are in leadership positions in the Paul Taylor Company, Parsons Dance, Hit the Lights! Theater, Renaissance Theater of Ohio, and our own Dances We Dance. Joe is particularly respected for bringing Delsarte’s teaching into the modern world, and demonstrating its applicability to not only theatrical expression but to family, social, and professional life for anyone. We believe you will be deeply enriched by exploring how this body of information can give you new insights into the work of great masters who used it, like Duncan, and inspire your own powerful creativity at the same time.

www.delsarteproject.com

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Teachers will include members of Dances We Dance/Performing Ensemble. Click here for bios.

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Isadora Duncan (1877-1927)

Isadora Duncan, born in San Francisco in 1877, was a pioneer in her presentation and approach to movement in the art of dance. She liberated dance from the confines of the ballet of her time, shedding ballet slippers and corset to combine the use of simple, natural movement. She sought a movement vocabulary that would illuminate the human spirit and its connection to nature. She was the first to choreograph to music not originally written for dance, including the works of such composers as Chopin, Brahms, Schubert and Scriabin. Duncan's career was marker by controversy as American audiences took exception to her bare limbs and bold approach to music and movement. She took her determination and boundless spirit to Europe, and later to Russia where she met and inspired  some of the great artists and poets of her time.

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As no films or notation of Isadora's dances were made until long after her death in 1927, her choreography has been preserved through the teaching on one generation of Duncan dancers to the next. After realizing her dream of establishing a school of dance, Isadora legally adopted six of ther most gifted students (Anna, Irma, Lisa, Margot, Erica, Marie-Theresa) who were fondly called the "Isadorables". These six women became the teachers of a third generation of Duncan dancers, among them Julia Levien, Hortense Kooluris, Gemze DeLappe, and Sylvia Gold. In turn these women have taught a new generation of Duncan dancers, and the cycle continues to this day. www.isadoraduncanarchives.org

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François Delsarte (1811-1871)

François Delsarte was a student at the Paris Conservatory, who, unsatisfied with the entirely subjective and posed style of acting taught at the Conservatory, (his singing voice, he believed, had been ruined in previous years by the music department), began an intensive study of how humans actually moved, behaved and responded to a multitude of circumstances. His “Science of Applied Aesthetics” was a thorough examination of voice, breath, movement dynamics, line and form, and virtually all the elements of the body in their roles as expressive agents of the human impulses, mind, spirit, and vital instinct. His lectures were attended by the most famous people of his era. It seemed a window into the deeper mysteries of art had been opened. Contemporary thought might recognize that he had uncovered the world of archetypes, and universal symbolism, but modern psychological theory was not to arrive for many more years.

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What is the real Delsarte System of Expression?

1. A complete and universally accurate map of the symbolic meanings of most parts of the body and of basic  human movement patterns. It is based on fundamental laws of physics and on the ancient wisdom of yoga, cabala and hermetic traditions.

2. A system of  body training to awaken the innate athletic prowess and expressive power of the human body. The system consists of:

3. Relaxing exercises to eliminate tension and ready the reflexes.

4. Exercises in balance to harmonize all parts of the body, and base all strength and power in the security of poised and balanced motion.

5. Exploration of universal meaning in the body according to the body's basic nature to express itself as Body, Mind and Spirit.

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Delsarte is the source material for much of the work of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St Denis, Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Etienne Decroux, among others. Delsarte lacked our modern vocabulary, and used different words, (Vital, Mental and Moral), but his intent was clear. 
He observed that if Body, Mind and Spirit: are our three basic impulses, it follows that:

• All human movement has to be inspired by one or a combination of these three. 

• Every part of the body that willfully moves or gestures must contain all three and be able to show all three

If that makes sense to you, you have found a starting point for understanding Delsarte's philosophy of human expression. A training in Delsarte awakens the student to the basic expressive meaning of every part of the body. 
 

1. Any student becomes empowered to better understand the forces of life, and their own self expression and that of those around them.

2. If you are a dancer, you will have a powerful tool for understanding choreography and styles, and for creating dance yourself. 

3. If you are an actor you will awaken the unconscious power of your body for expressing  your creativity and responding to other actors. 

4. The singer empowers gesture to reveal depth and subtext. 

5. The yogi finds the intensely practical and tangible side of the normally esoteric "body, mind, spirit" trinity.

6. The painter or sculptor finds universal tools for recreating emotion and expression in their medium.

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Source: The Delsarte Project

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