DANCE'S Mother & Daughter act

Dance Magazine, Dec, 1999 by Susan Reiter

Denise Jefferson and Francesca Harper have formed a Manhattan-Frankfurt axis in dance.

Sitting down with Denise Jefferson and Francesca Harper over tea and pastries is an opportunity for more than the usual mother-daughter chat. Between them, they have experienced the dance world from Martha Graham to William Forsythe, from the American Dance Festival to the School of American Ballet, from Chicago to the capitals of Europe. Jefferson has been director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center for fifteen years. Harper has been a member of William Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet since 1991. Together they represent two contrasting yet complementary approaches to dance as a way of life, not just as a career.

Sharing recollections and the occasional burst of boisterous laughter in Jefferson's Greenwich Village apartment, they form a lively, good-natured mutual-admiration society. Harper is using New York City as her base while taking a year's leave of absence from Frankfurt to pursue individual projects that include working with Anna Deveare Smith, choreographing a work for the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble, and creating a solo performance piece for Belgium.

Tall, with enviable bone structure, Jefferson and Harper share an enthusiasm for and an appreciation of all forms of the crucial contributions of dedicated teachers. But while Jefferson, who performed with Pearl Lang during the 1960s, ultimately found her niche as an educator, Harper is a born creature of the stage, whose work with Forsythe has incorporated singing and acting, along with his mind-expanding choreography. Interestingly, Jefferson is the more animated and outgoing, while Harper is more reflective and understated.

Harper, now thirty, has been exposed to dance since her toddler days, but her mother had to find her own, determined way into the field. At eight, Jefferson nagged her mother about taking dance class until "she relented, figuring I was serious enough. She did research on who the best ballet teachers were, and found Edna McRae. It was really strict, very serious training, and I was the only African American in the whole school."

Jefferson was familiar with ballet from the touring companies that passed through Chicago, where, she recalls, "Modern dance was not very big. Ballet seemed to be an exciting world, but I didn't plan to do it professionally. I had never seen anyone who wasn't white in a ballet company. I got more involved in my teenage social life." She majored in French at Wheaton College, near Boston--she planned to be an interpreter--and joined the dance club only because it offered her the chance "to get out of gym." After mastering such unfamiliar activities as sitting on the floor in a Graham-based class and improvising, she was encouraged to try a particular class in Boston. There she had her first view of Donald McKayle. "I remember hearing this deep, powerful voice," she says. "I looked in the room and saw this gorgeous black man. It seemed like I could do everything he asked us to do, and ballet had never been like that for me. There was this incredible connection: I felt free and powerful and I just loved it."

The American Dance Festival in 1963 provided further revelations for Jefferson. Martha Graham's and Jose Limon's companies were in residence; she took classes taught by their members, as well as by McKayle. "I was so hungry for all this modern dance," she recalls. "It was the most amazing summer of my life." She was eager to move to New York City and continue her dance studies, but her mother insisted that she graduate first.

"I came to New York immediately after graduation and headed to the Graham school," Jefferson says. "The company was rehearsing and I peeked in. There were Mary Hinkson, Bertram Ross, and Helen McGehee--and these incredible dancers were going to be my teachers! It was like I'd been given the richest gift. I was working full-time at the Ford Foundation, but soon I was taking five classes a week. Then I auditioned for a scholarship and got it. I was getting sucked in, more and more. Pearl Lang came and taught, and asked me to join her company. I enjoyed Pearl's work, but I was always a little shy onstage. I didn't bask in it the way I think Francesca does. From an early age, she loved it out on that stage. She had energy, she was committed to it, and she took your eye."

After two years with Lang, Jefferson married John Roy Harper II, a law student, and moved with him to South Carolina, teaching dance and French there and spending summers in New York City. Francesca was born in May 1969, and six weeks later Jefferson was back in class for her summer stint at the Graham school.

"We'd spend the summer in New York, and then we had to go back to South Carolina. That was hard for me. I realized I loved dance, and there was none in South Carolina. There were other issues, too. I felt at odds there, being a northern woman. With a child, you don't know what their gifts are when they're little, and I wanted to be in a place where she could get everything to fulfill her potential in every possible way, and get a wonderful education. I felt she and I had to leave South Carolina."