© Sónia Godinho
Zia Soares is a theatre director and actress. In her work, which is developed between Africa and Europe, she obsessively experiments with the construction of new dramaturgies rooted in the poetics of divergent oralities and (in)corporalities, where the verb is a manifestation of images — images that incarnate, that neither imitate nor reproduce, instead they act.
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; and 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).
In 2022, she joined the “Mulheres de Coragem” program at the invitation of the President of the Portuguese Republic and at the same year she was distinguished by the Association of Women Entrepreneurs Europe/Africa in the Acting category; the Bantumen Powerlist distinguished her as one of the 100 most influential black personalities in Lusophony in 2021 and 2022.
Daughter of an Angolan mother and Timorese father, she was born in Bié, Angola, in 1972, and she is based in Lisbon, Portugal. Zia Soares attended the Bachelor of Philosophy at the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa (Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon) and the Master 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 worked in ballet and percussion with the National Ballet Company of Guinea-Bissau, in theater with the “Os Sátyros” a company from Brazil, and with Teatro Praga from Portugal, having been one of the founders of the company, where she developed projects as artistic director, director and actress. In 2018/2019 she created and directed the first performances produced and performed exclusively by black women in Portugal - Gestuário I, produced by INMUNE (The Institute for Black Women in Portugal); and Gestuário II, co-production INMUNE/ BoCA - Biennial of Contemporary Arts. She is the artistic director of Teatro GRIOT, a company .
Zia Soares is the first black woman artistic director of a theater company in Portugal. 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, José Barahona, António Castelo, Pocas Pascoal , Pedro Filipe Marques. Zia Soares has been shortlisted for the PLATINO Ibero-American Film and Audiovisual Awards 2025 for Best Secondary Female Performance in José Brahona's film Sobreviventes, 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.