Vânia Doutel Vaz, Angolan, born in Setúbal, is a performer and creator working in the field of dance. In a hybrid territory between performance, choreography and interdisciplinary collaboration, she uses the idea of the body as an archive and a vehicle for fiction, focusing on relational questions. She is interested in creating a rotation of points of observation, allowing different subjectivities to emerge through the dialogue between bodies, gazes and presences. In this way, she seeks, through the relationship between performer and audience, to foster the emergence of a third entity.

Vânia studied in Portugal at the Royal Academy of Dance, the National Conservatory Dance School and Fórum Dança. Throughout her career, she has worked with some of the most renowned international contemporary dance companies, including Companhia Portuguesa de Bailado Contemporâneo, Nederlands Dans Theater II, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and PUNCHDRUNK. Since 2018, she has regularly collaborated with Trajal Harrell, working as a performer and rehearsal director. In 2024/25, she replaced Ligia Lewis in the solo A Plot | A Scandal, deepening her engagement with performance practices that challenge narrative and bodily conventions.

Alongside this, she has collaborated with choreographers and visual artists including Tânia Carvalho, Josefa Pereira, Shannon Gillen, Adam Linder, Andreia Santana, Kiluanji Kia Henda and Uri Aran. In theatre, she has also worked as a movement director for creators and organisations such as Zia Soares, Teatro Griot, Aurora Negra and Gio Lourenço, expanding her practice beyond dance as an autonomous discipline.

As a creator, she has developed her own language across different formats, including works such as violetas (2025), the solo O Elefante no Meio da Sala (2022, PT/FR/DE), the video performance ad aeternum (2020, PT) and the durational performance Bureauc’Art (2019, BE). In 2023, she was featured on Bantumen’s POWERLIST, recognising the impact of her artistic and cultural career. Since 2021, she has been a member of UNA.