In 2026, it will be 25 years since the death of Mónica Lapa.

A major driving force behind Portuguese contemporary dance, Mónica was also a tap dance teacher, a founding member of the Portuguese Dance Association, and co-founder, alongside Albino Moura, of the Danças na Cidade festival, which she directed together with Mark Deputter until her death.

Mónica was an artist with a promising vision whose urgency to question and promote inclusion through art left a profound impression on a generation of dancers in Portugal.

A talented dancer, she was part of Clara Andermatt’s creative journey for several years, also collaborating with her on production. Mónica began her career in dance as a tap dancer at the age of 16. Later, she established herself in contemporary dance, creating the duet Bimarginário with Francisco Camacho, followed by the solo Despe-te e Nada. After a long hiatus, she returned to choreographic creation with what would become her final work, Miss Liberty, which premiered in 1999.

As director of Danças na Cidade, following her first encounter with the Cape Verdean dance community in 1994, she embarked on a new project, Dançar o que é Nosso. Over four years, she developed the project with the aim of fostering artistic exchange and collaboration between organisations and artists across Europe, Africa and Brazil.

This performance stems from an idea that has gradually taken shape in the mind of choreographer Marta Lapa, Mónica’s sister, over recent years. It reflects on the importance and impact Mónica had on Portuguese contemporary dance from the 1990s onwards. It also arises from the realisation that generations of dance performers and creators do not know who Mónica Lapa was, nor are they aware of her ability to bring people together, inspire movement and drive artistic creation — even though they are, in fact, inheritors of her legacy.

What if Mónica had never died?

Moving between theatre and dance, this performance revisits the life, work and legacy of Mónica Lapa, a pivotal figure in Portuguese contemporary dance. Drawing on her biography, the memories of those whose paths crossed with hers, and the possibilities opened up by fiction, it creates an encounter between the artist who existed and the one who might have continued to create.

A dancer, choreographer, producer and driving force behind projects that brought artists, places and communities closer together, Mónica made dance a space for questioning, inclusion and transformation. On stage, bodies, words and gestures evoke her journey and imagine futures cut short: what works might she have created, what causes might she have championed, what new paths might she have opened?

Created by Marta Lapa, her sister, the performance is both an intimate act of remembrance and a collective reflection on how an artist endures beyond death. Our aim is not simply to remember who Mónica Lapa was, but to reactivate her unifying, restless and visionary energy, bringing it back to new generations and to the present of Portuguese dance.