Born in 1985, Romani.
André holds a degree in Art History from UAL, a graduate degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a Bachelor’s degree in Dance from Escola Superior de Dança. He has been a performer, rehearser and assistant director at Companhia Olga Roriz since 2015. André has collaborated with João Galante and Ana Borralho, Miguel Moreira, Bruno Alexandre, André Uerba, André E. Teodósio, Sylvia Rijmer, Diana de Sousa, André Mesquita, Teatro do MAR, WB Motion, Filipe Baptista, Bon Bom, Companhia de Dança de Almada, Amalgama Companhia de Dança, Companhia de Dança Contemporânea de Évora, among others. He was lighting designer for plays by Beatriz Dias, Filipe Baptista, Helena Baronet, Diogo Melo, Violeta Luz, and Gaya de Medeiros. André is the creator of UNDERDOG, TIME-LAPSE QUARANTINE and SAPO (considered one of the best plays of 2021 by the newspaper O Expresso) and Lançamento. He teaches contemporary dance, improvisation and repertoire at the Olga Roriz F.O.R. training centre and contemporary dance at Victor Cordon Studios.
Choreographer, performer and teacher. Claúdia is artistic director of the Seven Years Seven Plays project, and founder and director of cultural association Sete Anos Associação Cultural. She began her dance education at Academia Almadense, was awarded a scholarship at Companhia de Dança de Lisboa, completed the Contemporary Dance Performers Training Course at Fórum Dança, and attended the Master’s Degree course in Performing Arts at NOVA University Lisbon.
Cláudia began her work as a performer with dance group Grupo de Dança de Almada. She was a member of the collective Ninho de Víboras and has collaborated with Re.Al, and was a pivotal artist in João Fiadeiro’s creative strategy and in the development, systematisation and transmission of the Real-Time Composition method. She created the performances Feedback, E.U. (entrevistem-me urgentemente), Juntem-se 2 a 2, As águias não geram pombas, Per Ti, Histo, One Woman Show, Visita Guiada, Das coisas nascem coisas, Vontade de ter Vontade, 23 + 1, Nem tudo o que dizem tem de ser feito nem tudo o que fazemos tem de dizer, and the plays included in Seven Years Seven Plays.
Cláudia was associate artist at Re.Al and Espaço do Tempo and a resident artist at Alkantara. She has published texts in the magazines Boa União and Woman On Scene and in the books Correspondencias.Bad and Escenas do Cambio. She received an award from the Portuguese Club of the Arts and Ideas in the Young Creators competition, in 1998, and was nominated for the 2013 and 2017 Best Choreography Award by the Portuguese Society of Authors.
Holds a degree in Art History from NOVA University Lisbon. Karas trained in theatre with Yolanda Alves (Teatro de Papel), Etelvino Vázquéz (Teatro del Norte, Spain), José Peixoto (Teatro da Malaposta), Theodoros Terzopoulos (Attis Theatre, Greece), Fadhel Jaibi (Familia, Tunisia), Peter Stein (Schaubühne, Germany), Luís Miguel Cintra (Teatro da Cornucópia) and Hajo Schüller (Familie Flötz, Germany), and in contemporary dance with Peter Michael Dietz, Howard Sonenklar, and Cláudia Dias. He has been directed by Yolanda Alves, Miguel Clara Vasconcelos, João Garcia Miguel, Michel Simonot (Théâtre de l’Archipel), Theodoros Terzopoulos, Paulo Filipe Monteiro (Novo Grupo/Teatro Aberto), and Maria João Garcia, among others.
In 1996 he founded the collective Ninho de Víboras, where he works as a director, actor and producer. Karas has collaborated on Cláudia Dias’s project Seven Years Seven Plays since 2016, in the areas of creation, travelling theatre, training and publishing, through which he has performed extensively across Europe.
Dancer, performer and visual artist. Victória was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where she began her training as a dancer in 2007 and also graduated in Visual Arts from UFRGS. As a dance artist, her career has been marked by diversity, as she has collaborated as a performer/creator in countless projects and companies in Brazil.
In 2016 she joined Cia. Municipal de Dança de Porto Alegre, where she collaborated as a performer on performances by important choreographers such as Eva Schul, Orly Portal, Douglas Jung, and Rafael Gomes. In early 2019 she moved to Lisbon, where she continues to work as a performer and creator. In 2020 Victória created Massa Crítica, a cultural mediation project. She currently works as an assistant stage manager and rehearsal manager for Companhia Olga Roriz and also as a performer-creator in the new creation by choreographer Cláudia Dias.
Lives in Almada. Multi-instrumentalist, author, composer, performer, and producer of countless works and projects, ranging from rock, indie, industrial, progressive and psychedelic music to experimental and improvised music. João began making music at the age of 12, recording and exploring the sound environments of the Lisnave shipyards. He studied jazz guitar and improvisation techniques with musicians Eddie Goltz and David Gausden from Hot Clube Portugal in 1994. With a degree in Graphic Design from the Lusófona University of Humanities and Technologies, he has also embraced painting, illustration and sculpture.
João has released over 100 original albums in Portugal and abroad under multinational and independent labels with the bands Bizarra Locomotiva, Plastica, Thormenthor, Mofo, Astroflex, Braindead, Boris Ex-Machina, and Balla, among other projects.
He has composed, recorded and produced musical compositions for several shows with Cláudia Dias, Karas, John Romão, Pedro D’Orey, João Fiadeiro, Mark Thompkins, Vera Mantero, Nuno Bizarro, Aldara Bizarro, Marco Franco, Nuno Rebelo, Tiago Guedes, Poetas do Povo, Filipe Homem Fonseca, José Luís Peixoto, Nuno Miguel Guedes, Fernando Ribeiro, Paulo Diegues, Maria João Garcia, Inês Jacques, Maestro Jorge Salgueiro, o Coro Setúbal Voz, and Grupo de Teatro O Bando.
João participated in Cláudia Dias’s “Sete Anos” project. He is considered by the magazine Arte Sonora to be one of the 10 most important Portuguese guitarists of the past decade, and was named by Blitz magazine as one of the 30 best Portuguese guitarists of the last 30 years.
Studied Dramatic Arts (TAE. Vitoria-Gasteiz), holds a Master’s degree in Performing Arts Practice and Visual Culture from UCLM, and a specialist degree in Gender and Cultural Studies from UPNA, in addition to a Master’s degree in Event and Cultural Space Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Education from UNED. She has worked with organisations such as Save the Children and Amnesty International, coordinating social transformation projects through the performing arts. Amaia is currently focused on the search for new performance languages that push the boundaries of conventional production/creation/research methods.
Choreographer. Idoia specialised in ecosystems and population dynamics at the Department of Biology (UPV/EHU). She studied new dance and improvisation in the 1990s. Since 2000 she has been creating her own work, performing at various festivals and tours, and has collaborated with many other artists. In 2008, together with Juan González, Idoia built the creation centre Azala, namesake of the city where they live. In 2023, through the project Foku_2, the artists’ co-operative Tractora built a retrospective platform that explores her career in depth.
With a Bachelor’s degree in European Theatre Arts from Rose Bruford College (London, 2003), Hannah has taken part in several plays as a performer, playwright and director. She has been the director of Parasite Collective since 2012. After finishing her studies, she worked with British companies such as Zecora Ura Theatre Network, GLYPT, New International Encounters (NIE), and Unfinished Business. Between 2007 and 2009, Hannah was part of the artistic team of the Au Brana Cultural Centre in France. In 2011, she completed a Master’s degree in Character Enactment at the University of Navarra. The enactment of individual and cultural identity is a constant source of fascination and inspiration in her work.
Musician, author and composer. A sensitive musician and sound experimenter, it was through text, writing and poetry recitals in Basque that he entered the world of live performance. A classically trained clarinettist, at the age of 15 he began to take an interest in the guitar. From 2009 to 2014, he studied modern harmony at the San Sebastian School of Music and in 2014 he began training in film music. In 2010, he joined the Rouge Elea company and formed a harmonising duo with Corine Cella, as sound designer and/or co-author. Ander composes and plays music for shows and films with the collectives Balle Perdue and Metrokoadroka, with the companies Dejabu and Des Vents et marées, and for the directors of Zazpit’erdi. As a musician, he plays solo under the pseudonym Nigara zuek and with the group Muskulo.
Circus performer and circus and dance dramatist. Corine is developing projects with Rouge Elea. She trained in circus drama, aerial circus and dance in Marseille, Rosny-sous-Bois, Chalons-en-Champagne, and Brussels. The form of her writing led her to train in parallel documentary writing with ethnologist Marc Aubaret and the collective GdRa. Her interest centres around different forms, at the crossroads of different artistic expressions, aimed at observing or questioning our ways of being in the world, and has seen the creation of Calao (2003), À la poursuite du vent (2008), Biutz (2012), Ronde (2014), Zuek (Mugalariak-Donostie San Sebastian 2016 Capital of Culture), Ceci est la couleur de mes rêves (2017), Conversation avec un arbre (2019), and On est là tout va bien (2021). At the same time, she also collaborated with the companies Lunatic, Transe Express, Archaos, La Petite Compagnie, Quoi de Neuf Docteur, and the choreographer Nacera Belaza. As a dramatist, Corine works with the companies Teia, Branca, Metrokoadroka and Art&Co – Arthur Ribo. She founded and co-directs the artistic project of Tiers-Lieu Borderline Fabrika, in Hendaye.
Contemporary and cabaret dancer. Joana trained in Barcelona at the Varium-Anna Sanchez school. She worked on several projects that combined dance, theatre, circus and performance. She then discovered inclusive dance with Adam Benjamin and Maylis Arrabit (dance practice for everyone, including people with disabilities). She speaks Basque, French, Spanish, Catalan and English. Joana also works on radio and television as a presenter of cultural programmes. She has worked with the companies Malnascuts, Willi Dorner and Oriol Escurcell in Barcelona, and with Ezec Le Floc’h, Bacharte Dantza, Zarena Zarelako and Itzuliau in the Basque Country.
Choreographer, acrobat. Lucien joined ENACR to perform trampolining/dance, and then CNAC, where, as a free electron, he swings, invents acrobatic objects and, above all, begins to develop a perspective on movement. At CNAC, he had a transformative meeting with Alexandre Del Perugia, with whom he established a founding and inspiring relationship that lasts to this day, and whose thinking continues to imbue his work with sensitivity. He worked with several different companies (la scabreuse, cie in vitro, yves noel Genod, etc.) until the creation of Naïf production. With his childhood acrobat friends, Lucien created “je suis fait du bruit des autres”, “la mécanique des ombres”, “des gestes blancs” and “des gens qui dansent”. He is the driving force behind Naïf production’s latest piece, GRAVITROPIE (une somme de désordres possibles), which embodies his early research into active devices.
Sociologist. Luísa is an Associate Professor at ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon and researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology at the same institution, and associate researcher of the Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto. She has conducted research in the fields of arts and culture, labour, occupations, economics and education. She has collaborated with various artistic institutions such as Cinemateca Portuguesa, the Serralves Foundation and Associação Sete Anos. Luísa has published several works, including co-editing the books Trabalho no Ecrã: Memórias e Identidades Sociais Através do Cinema, published in 2016 by Edições 70, and Arts, Sustainability, and Education – ENO Yearbook 2, published in 2021 by Springer.
Sociologist with a degree from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto and a postgraduate degree in Social Policies: the new social areas, from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra, and researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto.
Carlota is a founding member and director of Associação A3S, a non-profit organisation
founded in 2006 dedicated to research and development. Her mission is to promote the social and solidarity economy and all forms of collective civil society organisation to build fairer, more participatory and inclusive alternatives. Carlota has over 25 years’ professional experience as a researcher, consultant, assessor and instructor. Her focus is on fields related to the fight against poverty, social entrepreneurship, the qualification of social economy organisations, and the socio-occupational integration of vulnerable groups. Since 2014 she has been evaluating and developing action research projects in the field of social inclusion through the arts and, more recently, education for development and global citizenship.
Sociologist and integrated researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-ISCTE). Joana has a PhD in Sociology from the University of São Paulo and holds a Master’s degree in Social and Solidarity Economy from ISCTE-IUL. She focuses her work on social research related primarily to employment, arts and culture, and the social and solidarity economy. She is currently member of the board of the Portuguese Association of Political Economy.
She graduated in Theatre Production/Scene Direction at ESMAE in 1998. Between 1998 and 2007 she was Stage Director at Rivoli Teatro Municipal, heading up the DC team and sometimes acting as Technical Coordinator. She participated as Head of Production and Production Director in several short films produced by Hélastre and Suma Filmes and as Head of Production in Paulo Rocha’s feature films Vanitas and Olhos Vermelhos. Guest lecturer on the Theatre/Production and Design – Stage Direction and Production course at ESMAE between 2007 and 2012. Professor of Stage Direction at ACE from 2014 to 2023. As a member of the Organising Committee of the SET Festival – Theatre Schools Week (2008 to 2017), she was responsible for Executive Production, guiding the 40 or so students and volunteers who take part in this festival. In 2009 he founded the company Pé de Cabra Lda, where he focuses his work. He was in charge of production and building applications for FIMP between 2010 and 2019 (10 editions) and FITEI between 2014 and 2016. Pé de Cabra is also responsible for the project ‘Aurora, on the road to equality’, supported by Dgartes’ Art for Democracy partnership programme, a space for critical reflection on the values and achievements of April and the role of women in the light of these achievements, through a cycle of multidisciplinary programming.
As well as being a producer, she is an activist in the field of culture, through Pé de Cabra, Performart – Association for the performing arts in Portugal and Acesso Cultura.
Além de produtora é ativista na área da cultura, através da Pé de Cabra, Performart – Associação para as artes performativas em Portugal e da Acesso Cultura.
In 2016 she finished her degree at ESMAE – Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo – in Theatre, Production and Design, Stage Direction and Production. During her degree she took part in the Nós project, directing the show ‘Mundo Persistente’, directed by Galician Tito Assorey, which was staged at TeCA, Teatro Nacional D. Maria and Centro Dramático Galego. In the summer of 2016 she conceived, produced and stage managed the travelling Commedia Dell’arte show ‘Bota na Ciesta’, which toured the beaches of the north of the country. She was stage director of the Christmas Circus at the Coliseu do Porto (2016/20). In 2017, she attended an internship at the Helena Sá e Costa Theatre, taking on the role of Stage Manager. She was part of the production team of the Porto International Puppet Festival from 2016 to 2019. She has been working in the production company Pé de Cabra since March 2019, being involved in the definition and execution of all the company’s projects.
She started dancing with Maria Franco in Almada and trained professionally as a scholarship student at the Lisbon Dance Company School and the Rui Horta Dance School, where she worked with Maria Franco, Rui Horta, Ruth Silk, João Fiadeiro, Clara Andermatt, Victor Garcia, Mark Haim, Martin Kravitz, Francesc Bravo, Carl Paris, Pedro Berdayes, Wim Vandekeybus and Carolyn Carlson. She was a dancer with Companhia de Dança de Almada, Companhia Rui Horta (Encontros ACARTE 1990), Companhia de Dança de Lisboa and Companhia Olga Roriz. She has worked as a producer and assistant director at Companhia de Dança de Almada; in Human Resources, Sales, Marketing and Operational Coordination at events companies. Between 2016 and 2024 she was Coordinator of the Pedagogical Department and Artistic Residencies at Companhia Olga Roriz. In 2024, she took up the position of Production Manager at Sete Anos Associação Cultural.
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