Francesca Fargion

Durante and the Bad Loves

Durante and the Bad Loves is a musical take on Dante’s Divine Comedy, where the mountain of Purgatory becomes a mirror of Christian moralism in Norway and in western societies in general. The show dives freely into Dante’s 700 year old text, exploiting its narrative richness while adding wit and pace, in search of what a medieval perspective can bring to the interpretation of our time and its new invasive moralism. Durante and the Bad Loves creates a dialogue between the two eras, which lately feel as close as they are far apart. A piece by Andrea Spreafico and Matteo Fargion

Au Revoir

this one's called au revoir

My Body is a Bowl

The 10 Fingers have for years specialised in performances on the border of theater and visual art. The group worked with different materials in their previous performances, such as paper, plastic, or soil, studying their nature and how to give them life on stage through movement and body language. In the performance My Body is a Bowl, the group is working with clay. This time mixing its methods with the methodology of stage artist and composer Matteo Fargion, who brings certain formulas from music composition and transfers them to movement and choreography which fits very well with the working methods of 10 fingers. My Body is a Bowl is a performance for adults, unlike most of the group's previous works. Music written by Matteo and Francesca Fargion.

52 Portraits

A year long online project consisting of short 'portrait' films of 52 performers with biographical songs. Made with Jonathan Burrows and film maker Hugo Glendinning. Music performed by Francesca Fargion & Matteo Fargion. Commissioned by Sadlers Wells Theatre. The project invited 52 individual dance artists or duos to make a short gestural dance, set or improvised, in response to a minimal formal invitation. Each dance was filmed by Hugo Glendinning and overdubbed by composer Matteo Fargion with songs drawn from verbatim interview, detailing personal autobiographical, artistic, social and philosophical reflections. The diverse participants had all worked in some way before with the curators, situating the conception and mapping of the project within this larger underlying ecology of the dance field.

Music For Lectures / Get lost

Music For Lectures/Get Lost (2020) is part of an ongoing series which invites someone to give a talk, backed by a rock band. Get Lost is a talk by Wendy Houstoun about lostness, with Jonathan Burrows on drums, Francesca Fargion on synth and Matteo Fargion on bass. The project continues Burrows' and Fargion's interest in visiting the practice of other artists and being visited in return.

3 Romantic songs

a mini-album based on Schumann's Frauen-Liebe und Leben

Music For Lectures/Every word was once an animal

Music For Lectures/Every word was once an animal (2018) is part of an ongoing series which invites someone to give a talk, backed by a rock band. Every word was once an animal is a talk by Mette Edvardsen about repetition, with Jonathan Burrows on drums, Francesca Fargion on synth and Matteo Fargion on bass. The project continues Burrows' and Fargion's interest in visiting the practice of other artists and being visited in return.

Circe songs

'Circe songs' is a set of spell songs inspired by the Greek Goddess, witch and sorceress, Circe. The album explores ancient magic and ritual practices, many of the songs using text from spells found in the 'Greek Magical Papyri'. Made up of remote ensemble and choir recordings, with added electronic sounds, much of the melodic content is sourced from folk melodies of the 'Mondine' (Italian rice field workers). credits released September 30, 2020

Louise, gently falling

Let us stop this mad rush towards the end

'Let us stop this mad rush towards the end' was a commission for the London Festival of Contemporary Music at the Ambika Space London, directed and conceived by Burrows&Fargion, with music composed by Matteo Fargion, dance by Claire Godsmark, singing and piano by Francesca Fargion and conducted by Jack Sheen with the London Contemporary Music Festival orchestra. The starting point was a statement from the concertina player Will Duke, describing how to savour the gap between two notes and hold off from the usual headlong tumble. The two artists invited dancer Claire Godsmark to trace and hold a moving pathway between a lone singer, Francesca Fargion, and the orchestra. 'What is heard is also seen and ears exchange places with eyes.'