Ageless Dancers : Betti Franceschi

Betti Franceschi is a painter and sculptor with a decades-long interest in dancers. In 1983, she went to Paris to revel in her daughter Antonia dancing with New York City Ballet there. At the season gala, the audience was as thrilling as the performance on stage. However, the Parisian women in their couture paled in comparison to the retired ballet étoiles in attendance. Exactly thirty years later, at three in the morning Franceschi was jolted awake in her bed by the realization that she had to photograph those étoiles. It turned out that the project was realized with mostly American stars, and not in Paris but in Franceschi’s New York studio. The "Ageless Dancers" photographs are about great dancers’ expressive inner line and the technique that survives diminished athleticism—the artist’s joy triumphant over time.

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