Andrea Francalanci
Biography
Andrea Francalanci (1949-1994)
Andrea Francalanci was a dancer, musician, teacher, choreographer and specialist in early dance theory and performance. He was one of the first Italian scholars to devote himself to the rediscovery of Renaissance dance, eventually becoming one of Europe's leading experts on Italian Renaissance dance. While studying early music in Urbino, he met American-born dance historian Barbara Sparti and became interested in early dance. He graduated from the University of Florence in 1982 with a thesis entitled La danza di corte nel Quattrocento italiano.
In 1983, he obtained a B.A. in early dance from London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1983, he founded his own dance company, Il Ballarino, named after Fabritio Caroso's dance treatise. He has collaborated with musical directors Sergio Balestracci, René Clemencic, Alan Curtis, Gabriel Garrido, Philippe Herreweghe, Andrew Parrott and Anthony Rooley, among others. He has also collaborated extensively with Francine Lancelot and her baroque dance company, Ris et Danseries, for which he has also been guest choreographer. A regular contributor to conferences on early dance, he has produced several scholarly works.
He choreographs for television, featuring international dance stars such as Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Carla Fracci and others.
A much sought-after teacher, he gives classes and workshops in the leading centers for early dance. He was a guest professor at the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva and regularly taught Italian Renaissance dance at the Sorbonne. Andrea Francalanci died in Paris, at the peak of his career, on January 14, 1994.
Source: I TATTI Harvard University's Center for the Study of the Italian Renaissance
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