Home

With 30 + years of unwavering commitment to the arts, expression, and movement, Debora Balardini has traveled beyond craft to her calling as a performer, educator, director, and producer globally. With creative and cultural career roots that began in her native home of Brazil, Debora has traveled as a performer, director, and educator in Japan, Argentina, France, and Chile before making her home in New York City.

With fierce loyalty to movement and physical theater as an art form, Debora’s extensive performance background spans ballet, modern dance, and tap. After becoming Hatha yoga certified, mindfulness and overall well-being greatly influenced her approach to the arts. Debora has fostered a growing vision of traditional and experimental exceptionalism from voice-overs to theater acting, choreographic theatre direction, and production, from cabaret to variety, from feature films to short films. Debora is one of the co-founders of the award-winning Group Dot BR – NY’s only Brazilian theater company, an award-winning ensemble, as well as one of the co-founders of Nettles Artists Collective (NAC), a Latina-based collective that has received multiple awards and nominations for original work.

With performing theater credits to include The Cherry Orchard, Servant of Two Masters, Romeo and Juliet, The Threepenny Opera, and Don Quixote de La Mancha, Debora sought to deepen her roots in NYC by co-founding the former PUNTO Space – an Events & Performance venue for social events, art happenings, and performances that served as a creative home and place for the artistic community to collaborate, explore and thrive.

In the realm of avant-garde performance, she participated in the opera “U” with the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble from Holland held at the Watermill Center residency program and Tropiezos, directed by Enrique Pardo in Santiago Chile at Universidad Mayor. Debora’s credits as a theater director include The Serpent by acclaimed playwright Nelson Rodrigues in honor of his Centennial in 2011 as well as Infinite While It Lasts in honor of Vinicius de Moraes’ Centennial in 2013 and 2014 which was nominated for an Innovative Theater Awards 2013 for Outstanding Choreography/Movement as well as the International Brazilian Press Award for best show.

Debora proudly directed and co-produced Apple of My Eye (Menina dos Meus Olhos), the first professionally produced play written and performed by an artist with Down syndrome, Tathiana Piancastelli. Apple of My Eye received a prestigious invitation to present at UNICEF in honor of National Down Syndrome Day and received a Brazilian International Press Award 2016 (BIPA) for Best Theatrical Production. She is also the director for Bother Line, a one-woman show created and performed by Gio Mielle which premiered at Punto Space and had a run at The Tank in NYC. Debora directed a performance of Episode #10 (Wondering Rocks) of Ulysses by James Joyce alongside fellow NAC members at the Mathew Gallery Multidisciplinary Ulysses Exhibition in partnership with Montez Press Magazine.

Debora is a 2017 SheRocks Art Innovator of the Year Award winner, accepting the honor in Washington, DC, and also accepted a 2017 BIPA nomination for Best Actress and Best Theatrical Performance for Inside the Wild Heart. Debora is a recipient of the 2019 Social Impact and Innovation in Arts award at the Essence of a Boss conference and received an official proclamation of the United States National Council of Women (NCW) / US) in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council for its humanitarian work dedicated to the empowerment of women.

With a playful range that precedes her, she also enjoyed being the voice of Caillou and the Mom’s voice for the Portuguese version of the cartoon Caillou, an award-winning television series about an inquisitive four-year-old.

Debora served on the Board of Directors at the League of Professional Theatre Women and is a member of several organizations including Americans for the Arts, SAG-AFTRA, AEA Actor’s Equity Association, Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Yoga Alliance, and the Alliance of Resident Theaters (The A.R.T. NEW YORK). Currently, Debora teaches voice with a focus on Roy Hart Extended Range Technique and has a part-time practice on Integrative Therapy with a focus on body language.