PAULA SOUSA

CHOREOGRAPHER

SHE/HER

Paula is a Brazilian movement artist whose career has developed across Brazil, Europe, and the United States, where she is currently based. She works as a choreographer, performer, filmmaker, and educator. Her training began in ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre School in Brazil and continued in Austria, at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), where she completed her Major in Dance.

Working within Europe’s contemporary dance landscape, including a residency at La Biennale di Venezia, helped shape her artistic direction and ambition: to create work that engages contemporary issues and challenges audiences to reconsider assumptions and explore new perspectives. In Brazil, Paula navigated both established companies and independent projects, gaining experience not only on stage but also within the structures and bureaucracies that shape artistic production, exploring how culture, politics, and geography influence artistic work. These experiences led her to pursue a second degree in Cultural Public Policy.

Issues currently inspiring her work include technology and its challenges to our sense of humanity and self, data bias, migration, and experiences of otherness. Her recent choreographic works have been presented by Hedwig Dances, DanceWorks Chicago, Illinois State University, Noumenon Dance Ensemble, Ruth Page Civic Ballet Training Company, and UIUC.

She is currently pursuing her MFA in Choreography at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. More of her work can be found at paulasousa.art.