Joana is a playwright, theater director, actress, professor, anthropologist, and documentary director. She is the artistic director of Teatro do Vestido (which she co-founded in 2001) and the coordinator of the Theater Undergraduate Program at Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha. She holds a PhD from University of Roehampton in London. Her creative methods are strongly rooted in ethnographic practices and oral history. The connection between historical events and their representation in the present, as well as the collection of memories and life stories, and the poetic and affective cartographies are some of the subjects on which she has worked and researched. She develops a creative and combative teaching practice that helps to envision a world free of totalitarianism, xenophobia, misogyny, and structural racism. Her theater is political, documentary, and poetic. She is a member of the European playwriting network Fabulamundi and an associated researcher at Instituto de História Contemporânea at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHC/NOVA).