Sara Montalvão (Porto, 1986) is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, creator and teacher whose practice and research focus on the body and dance as territories of memory, identity and transformation. She is interested in memory as a cause and reflection of personal and collective identities, as well as symbolic and metaphorical language in dramaturgical and compositional development. Her work is permeated by an anthropological perspective that combines traditions, rhythms and music with contemporary expressions, exploring hybrid and innovative formats and promoting dialogue between communities, artistic languages and fields of knowledge.

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She graduated in Anglo-American Studies from FLUP (2008) and trained as an actress in Buenos Aires at the Estudio de Actuación Augusto Fernandes (2010). In 2013, she completed the Advanced Training in Choreographic Creation and Composition (FAICC) with Companhia Instável, in Porto, and in 2018 she completed her Postgraduate Degree in Contemporary Dance (ESMAE / Teatro Municipal do Porto). In 2020, she trained with Olga Álvarez at the AREA school in Barcelona.

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Her training includes several intensive practices with choreographers and methodologies that have profoundly marked her research, notably Gaga (Batsheva Dance Company / Ohad Naharin), Flying Low (David Zambrano), Improvisation (Edivaldo Ernesto and Horacio Macuacua), Intact Method/Turtling (Rakesh Sukesh), Fighting Monkey (Natalia Pieczuro), Contact Partnering (Luke Jessop / Ion Tribe) and Summer Intensive Performact. Somatic practices and martial arts — Kung Fu and Capoeira — strongly influence her philosophy and vision of movement.

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Her career spans multiple disciplines and performative contexts, integrating physical theatre and clowning, urban and traditional dance, Afro-Brazilian, Latin, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern rhythms, as well as the construction and manipulation of animated forms and puppets. She has also developed community and social work as a contemporary dance, theatre and inclusive dance trainer for different audiences and age groups. She has lived and worked in Scotland, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, France and Israel/Palestine. 

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Since 2013, she has been developing a consistent career as a creator, performer and trainer, with solo and co-created works. She has collaborated with artists and organisations such as Mafalda DeVille, Miguel Moreira, José Artur Campos, Teresa Alpendurada, Edgar Pêra, Ana Bacalhau, CiM/Vo’Arte, Teatro do Mar, Diletta Bindi, Magnum Soares, Ustad Fazel Sapand, among others.

In 2020, she co-founded the Unloop collective with visual artist David Negrão, beginning their partnership with the interactive film Loop Mental. This was followed by the UNLOOP residencies (2021), the BIO LOOP project (2022), focused on biosensors for the performing arts, and RELOOP (2024), an interactive solo performance. From this journey emerged Unloop Lab, a choreographic methodology that investigates memory in the individual or social body as compositional material.

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In parallel, she develops her own research and methodologies. In 2025, Sara taught a creative workshop in the first term of the 25/26 course at FOR – a professional training course for dancers at the Olga Roriz Company in Lisbon. Since the end of 2022, she has been collaborating as a dancer-performer with the Catalan company Agrupación Señor Serrano in the show Una Isla, which premiered at the Grec Festival in Barcelona in 2023 and intensevely toured internationally until 2025. 

In 2026, she premieres her solo work Sonhos 7/24, with international circulation planned and support from GDA and DGArtes. She is also developing the visual and interactive installation project Rhîza, where movement arts, sound creation and visual creation dialogue with science. This project is currently being developed in Coimbra, with its premiere scheduled for July 2026 at the São Francisco Convent.

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She is responsible for the production, fundraising and management of her projects, having obtained support from GDA, DGArtes, GEPAC and CML.

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Sara Montalvão continues to develop her work as a creator, performer, researcher and trainer, exploring hybrid practices between body, technology, memory and live sound design.

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