Choreographer and Performer

Filipa studied dance, theatre, improvisation and dramaturgy at Escola Superior de Dança in Lisbon, at the Trisha Brown dance company, at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York, and with dramaturgist André Lepecki.

She worked with choreographers and theatre directors Joaquim Benite, João Garcia Miguel, Lucia Sigalho, Francisco Camacho, Vera Mantero, Sílvia Real, Madalena Victorino, Rui Nunes, Aldara Bizarro, Paula Castro, Bruno Cochat, João Galante and Ana Borralho, among others.

Highlights from her work include Projeto Re(existing) — training and artistic creation developed for 7 years with incarcerated people from the Castelo Branco Prison (2000-2007); the collaboration for 6 years with Idoia Zabaleta, with whom she created “Dueto”, “Bicho Eres Un Bicho” and the book “Bicho”; “Íman” created under the Nu Kre Bai Na Bu Onda project, with young people from the Cova da Moura neighbourhood (2007-2009); “A Viagem” a piece premiered in 2011 at Festival Materiais Diversos, which has been developed and presented ever since with different folk dance groups in Portugal and abroad.

In addition, her pieces “Espiões” (2016) created in collaboration with Francisco Camacho, Sílvia Real and Miguel Pereira; the solo “Partilhas/Exchanges” (2019) and “Nu Meio” (1996), cocreated with Bruno Cochat, are still touring.

In 2019 and 2020 she presented the show “Aqui Yha”, cocreated with Bruno Cochat, Ricardo Freitas and young people from Nepal and Portugal, at Festival Todos.

In 2021/22 she developed an artistic and social project with young migrants on the south bank, with Almada Mundo and Partis & Art for Change, resulting in the creation of “Tuntunhi”.

She is the artistic director of associação Mundo em Reboliço, is part of the group Periferias Centrais and the international networks IETM and Area.

“Throughout my work I have sought to reflect deeply and research around the social and political dimensions of art. Reaching out to the audience and, when necessary, moving the artistic work to spaces that increase the possibilities of this encounter is something I have dedicated myself to. In a letter exchanged with choreographer Idoia Zabaleta (cocreator of the piece “Dueto”) I reaffirm this concern and manifest my interest in approaching this issue: “If I could build a space for a body to move, what space would that be? Building a space or using existing ones, placing them like mushrooms or viruses on vacant lots, in peripheral neighbourhoods like Cova da Moura or next to large theatres seems to me to be an interventionist and political act”.

(September 19, 2005)