Francesca Lettieri is a choreographer, creator of dance-theatre performances, dancer and teacher of contemporary dance. She is co-artistic director of the ADARTE Company, which she founded in 2002.

Since 2009 she has been the artistic director of Ballo Pubblico – International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Urban Spaces, now in its 16th edition, organized in collaboration with the Municipality of Poggibonsi and the Fondazione ELSA – Teatro Politeama (Poggibonsi, Siena), where since 2021 she has also curated the artistic direction of the dance section of the live performance program DISCIPLINES.

She discovered her passion for dance at the age of four and, while still very young, founded a permanent laboratory for movement research that became the space where she began developing her own compositional technique. After earning a degree in Law from the University of Siena and completing a Master’s degree in International Protection of Human Rights at the University of London, she received a scholarship at the University of Texas at Austin – Department of Performing Arts (USA) and decided to devote herself entirely to dance.

Her artistic training and choreographic research are closely connected to major figures in the international contemporary dance scene, including Carolyn Carlson, with whom she has developed a long-standing artistic relationship through collaborations and projects, and David Zambrano, her mentor, whose work she followed for many years.

Her works have been presented in festivals and theatres in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Albania, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Colombia and Canada. She has created works for Italian and international companies. In Italy she was invited to choreograph two original works exclusively for the Arena di Verona Ballet: Pulcinella set to music by Igor Stravinsky and Carmina Burana set to music by Carl Orff. She also created Beat Armonico for the Canadian company Wen Wei Dance (Vancouver) and a version for ten dancers of La Bambola for the Mexican company MOVES (Guadalajara).

Part of her research focuses on contemporary dance in urban and non-conventional spaces and on the relationship between dance and music. She has collaborated with the Accademia Musicale Chigiana of Siena and regularly works with jazz musicians such as Silvia Bolognesi and Andrea Beninati, as well as with classical musicians including violinist Anaïs Chien and cellist Francesco Dillon.

In 2024 she curated the artistic direction of LUX FEMINAE – Dancing the Feminine, a project of the National Museums of Siena presented in the halls of the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena.
In 2023 she conceived and directed Moving Barocco, created in collaboration with the Accademia Chigiana – Siena and dedicated to the dialogue between contemporary dance and Baroque music. The project was supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture (MIC) as a Special Project for Contemporary Dance.

She is the artistic director of the international project GEOGRAPHIES OF GESTURE – Bodies in Transit between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic (2026–2027), supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture and dedicated to choreographic creation and the study of processes involved in the construction of choreographic language in dialogue with universities and artistic institutions.
The project involves international partners including the Centre National de la Danse, Radialsystem Berlin—an artistic production center directed by choreographer Sasha Waltz—and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico City), where an artistic residency and a co-creation process with the youth dance company of the university will take place. The project also includes a residency and co-creation at La Normal, under the artistic direction of Antonio Ruiz, with students from the Conservatorio Superior de Danza de Córdoba (Spain).

She also directs BODY SPEAKING, a permanent laboratory dedicated to contemporary dance developed in collaboration with the University of Siena within its Third Mission and Public Engagement activities, supported by the Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena through the project Community Hub – Culture Ibride (Vie di Uscita 2026). The project offers students an artistic experience within the university environment and fosters dialogue between dance and the academic world.