Choreographer, Performer & Teacher
Cristina Planas Leitão is currently co-Artistic Director of Teatro Municipal do Porto, DDD – Festival Dias da Dança and CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva. She has a degree in dance performance from ArtEZ, Arnhem (The Netherlands, 2006). She worked as a performer for Gabriella Maiorino/Dansmakers Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Isabelle Schad (Germany), Flávio Rodrigues/Northern Contemporary Ballet (Portugal), Vloeistof (The Netherlands), Catarina Miranda (Portugal) and Marco da Silva Ferreira (in the piece Brother, which is still on tour), and as a rehearsal director for Hofesh Shechter (2012-2014) and Gregory Maqoma (2015)—projects by Companhia Instável (Portugal). In 2011, back in Porto, she was one of the starters of encontros desNORTE (2011-2017) and created the project Conquering the studio: a time for research for the Northern Contemporary Ballet and Companhia Instável. In 2010, she was one of 50 artists chosen by David Zambrano to participate in 50 Days of Flying Low and Passing Through in Costa Rica, whose techniques she has been teaching worldwide since then, being part of the only group that is certified to teach and develop them. Among her pieces, she highlights The Very Delicious Piece and The Very Boring Piece, both co-created with Jasmina Križaj, the solo Bear Me and also FM [featuring mortuum] and UM [unimal]—the latter was elected one of the best in 2018 by newspapers Expresso and Jornal de Notícias. Her body of work is documented in the series Portugal Que Dança [Dancing Portugal] (RTP2), in which every episode portrays the work of a member of the most vibrating generation of Portuguese dance.
Cristina Planas Leitão took part of the Conference Encontros para o Futuro III - Navegar é preciso? Sentidos para a internacionalização da dança. A programme developed by EVC in 2020 curated by Vânia Rodrigues.
