João Oliveira & Mariana Pontes Barbosa, originally from the North of Portugal, are performers and creators who seek to question and challenge the power dynamics within the contexts in which they operate, valuing multidisciplinarity and diversity as central pillars of their artistic practices.
João Oliveira is a Lisbon-based performer and creator. He has collaborated with several directors and choreographers, including Carlos Costa, Né Barros, Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz, Filipe Moreira, Ricardo Pais, Madalena Victorino, Bernardo Gavina, Francisco Camacho, and Rogério Nuno Costa, among others. As a creator, he is interested in blending different art forms, particularly theatre and dance, and in the past year he has ventured into writing dramatic texts. He created the pieces Dois Peixes em Marte (2021) with Andreia Fraga, Caem Calhaus do Céu (2022), Dostoyevsky Made Me Do It (2023), and Violeta (2023). In 2023, he was one of the Guest Artists at the DDD – Dias da Dança Festival.
As a creator, Mariana Pontes Barbosa is credited with the co-creations CERES, with Gisela Ferreira and Délia Krayenbüh, and SUPER-STARE, with Rafael Ferreira. She performed in the film Viaggiare nella maionese, shot in Sicily, a collaboration between The Bunch Art Festival and the Fiumara D’arte Foundation. As a professional dancer, she has engaged with the work of artists and companies that have influenced her career, notably André Uerba, Roberto Olivan, Ana Isabel Castro, Daniela Cruz, Davis Freeman, Pedro Ramos, São Castro, Christine Hassid, Sara Garcia, and Rogério Nuno Costa, among others.