Marlene Monteiro Freitas (1979) is the poster child of new Portuguese dance. She is known for her lavish and expressive pieces that feature grotesque characters partly inspired by the carnivals from her Cape Verdean youth. Her visual language hovers between the grotesque and the magical. Monteiro Freitas was born in Cape Verde, where she was a co-founder and member of the dance group Compass. She studied at P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), at the Escola Superior de Dança and at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon). She is the co-founder of P.OR.K., a production organisation based in Lisbon.