Nervous Doll Dancing is a solo project by Melbourne-based cellist Francesca Mountfort that started in Wellington, New Zealand in 2002 and won the NZ Fringe Award for Best in Music in 2003 with an eclectic show incorporating shadow puppetry, film and dance to her original live music.

Producing her debut self-titled album Nervous Doll Dancing in 2004, Francesca went on to perform solo across New Zealand and Australia to critical acclaim.

In 2008 Nervous Doll Dancing began collaborating with puppeteer Marisa Fior and projectionist Tom Hume for a new show taking its title from a new album release, Aphelion. The show was performed in festivals in both Australia and New Zealand and again won the NZ Fringe Award for Best in Music at the 2010 festival.

The latest show, Eidolon, is a musical performance featuring original film, illustration, animation with live music from Francesca’s latest album, Eidolon, released in April 2012.  An early 2012 tour of New Zealand and Australia saw Nervous Doll Dancing win a third award for Best in Music at the New Zealand Fringe Festival in Wellington.

Nervous Doll Dancing albums are available here via iTunes

About Francesca

Francesca Mountfort is a Melbourne-based cellist and composer.   She has toured Europe, Australia and NZ with a variety of genre spanning acts including gypsy, swing, cabaret punk, indie, and solo cello with dance. Current side projects include Shljivovitz Orchestra, a seven piece gypsy orchestra who bring to life uplifting traditional music from the Balkans.

Graduating from Victoria University with a Bachelor of Music in 2002 and Majoring in electroacoustic composition, she set about laying down the foundations for what would become Nervous Doll Dancing.

Francesca studied cello with Rolf Gjelsten from the New Zealand String Quartet and with David Chickering, principal cellist of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.