© Sónia Godinho
Zia Soares is a theatre director and actress. In her work, developed between Africa and Europe, she obsessively experiments with the construction of new dramaturgies rooted in poetics of oralities and divergent (in)corporealities, where the verb is a manifestation of images — images that incarnate, that neither imitate nor reproduce, but perform. Her practice investigates and reflects on colonial unburied bodies and their legacies, dignity in death, repatriation and restitution, mourning, trance and ceremonial practices, and performance as a force of agency.
Of her most recent stagings, stand out O Riso dos Necrófagos, authored by her, co-produced by Teatro GRIOT and Culturgest, which was distinguished as “Best Show 2021/22” within the scope of the Premio Internazionale Teresa Pamodoro (Milan, Italy); Uma Dança das Florestas, by Wole Soyinka, co-produced by Teatro GRIOT and São Luiz Teatro Municipal; FANUN RUIN, authored by her, and co-produced by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and SOWING_ARTS; Pérola Sem Rapariga, co-produced by Sowing_arts, Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, apap - Feminist Futures (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), and ARUS FEMIA, produced by SOWING_ARTS, Netos de Bandim, Teatro Municipal do Porto, STATION for contemporary dance.
In 2022, at the invitation of the President of the Portuguese Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, she joined the Mulheres de “Coragem” programme Women of Courage. In the same year she was recognised by the Association of European and African Women Entrepreneurs Europe/Africa in the Acting category; In 2021 and 2022, the Bantumen Powerlist distinguished Zia Soares as one of the 100 most influential black personalities in the Lusophone world.
Zia Soares — the first Black woman to assume the artistic direction of a theatre company in Portugal — is the daughter of an Angolan mother and a Timorese father, born in Bié, Angola, in 1972. She studied Philosophy at the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa (Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon) and attended the Master’s of Performing Arts at the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Nova University of Lisbon). She trained and worked in ballet and percussion with the National Ballet Company of Guinea-Bissau, in circus arts with the Amsterdam Balloon Company (Netherlands). She was one of Teatro Praga´s founders were she worked as artistic director, director and actress. She created and directed the first performances in Portugal produced and performed exclusively by Black women — Gestuário I, produced by INMUNE (Institute of Black Women in Portugal), and Gestuário II, co-produced by INMUNE and BoCA – Biennial of Contemporary Arts. She has been the artistic director of Teatro GRIOT since its foundation. She is also co-founder of SOWING_ARTS, an organization founded by multidisciplinary artists, which promotes projects with a particular focus on the intersection of the arts with issues of intersectionality, botany, ecofeminism and agroecology, and science and technology.
In cinema, she has worked with the directors João Botelho, Avelina Prat, Latifa Said, José Barahona, António Castelo, Pocas Pascoal, Pedro Filipe Marques. Zia Soares was pre-selected for the PLATINO Ibero-American Film and Audiovisual Awards 2025 in the category of Best Supporting Actress for her performance in José Barahona's film The Survivors, a DAVID & GOLIAS production.
She teaches performing arts workshops in the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) and among black communities in the Lisbon metropolitan area, and is a frequent lecturer and guest speaker at various events organised by artistic and academic organisations.
Zia Soares is an artist supported by apap – Feminist Futures, Creative Europe Program of the European Union.