Considered one of the pioneers of the Portuguese New Dance movement, Clara Andermatt's career has revealed, over the years, a unique artistic identity in the national and international artistic scene, proven in a path that has left its mark on the history of contemporary Portuguese dance.
She began dancing with her mother, Luna Andermatt, and graduated from the London Studio Centre and the Royal Academy of Dance (also in London). She won scholarships at the Jacob's Pillow (Massachusetts, 1988), the American Dance Festival (Durham, 1994), and the Bates Dance Festival (Maine, 2002). Between 1984-88 she was a member of Companhia de Dança de Lisboa, directed by Rui Horta, and between 1989-91 she danced at Ramón Oller's Companyia Metros, in Barcelona.
She created her own dance company in 1991. Having choreographed around 60 pieces, those were regularly presented in Portugal and abroad, and some of them have been awarded national and international important prizes. In 1994, she initiated a strong relationship with Cape Verde, which materialized in several projects with local performers, training activities and collaborations with artists from different areas.
In 2015, she was invited by the City Council of Santa Maria da Feira (Portugal) to be the artistic director of the LabinDança project. Her artistic language is always being reinvented through travelling, encountering other cultures and artistic languages, and by the desire to work with both trained and non-trained dancers/bodies. Her work has always had a double dimension: artistic and inclusive.
