Education
Balça trained as a counter-tenor and actor in Portugal, and performed extensively in Portugal, Spain and France before moving to the United Kingdom in 1998, when he started focusing on directing during his Bachelor Performing Arts – Drama at Middlesex University. Since then, he leads workshops and research projects in the areas of opera, physical theatre, interdisciplinary performance and cross-culturalism. Back at Middlesex University, Balça finished his Master of Arts Theatre Directing in 2007, which took him to Russian University of Theatre Arts (Moscow) to study Meyerhold and Biomechanics.
As a director, Balça has studied with names such as John Russell Brown, Leon Rubin, David Peacock, Signy Henderson, Derek Proctor, Lydia Ziemke, Joe Hill-Gibbins, William Harris and Paola Cavallin among others
In Moscow, he studied with Nicholai Karpov, Oleg Kudrishov, Anna Trifonova and Oleg Glushkov.
Career
He is the current Artistic Director for Bloomsbury Opera since May 2015 and a lecturer at BIMM Brighton (The British & Irish Modern Music Institute). Balça works and teaches regularly in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands as a stage director, movement director, drama teacher and performance coach with both actors and opera performers. As a workshop leader, he led the LIMOP (Leeds International Masterclass of Opera Performance) in July 2010 at the University of Leeds and taught in the Master of Arts Opera course at the Dutch National Opera Academy (Conservatorium van Amsterdam and Koninklijk Conservatorium - Den Haag).
Balça"s drecting credits include Mea Culpa inspired by P. Handke"s Self-Accusation (University of Leeds), the critically acclaimed The Bald Soprano by East. Ionesco (Oval House Youth Theatre Company), Don Giovanni …a fashion opera by West.A. Mozart (Bloomsbury Opera), The Magic Flute by West.A. Mozart (Goodenough Bloomsbury Festival, Tango Finale by M. Corbett (+LOGO), "The Tunnel of Rats by Anugrah Narayan Rosa (Stonecrabs), Blood on the Cat’s Neck by R.W. Fassbinder (Simmonds Theatre) and The Medium by G.C. Menotti (The Orangery).
Balça’s doctoral research When a Voice Is Not Enough: the existentialist opera performer as auteur at the University of Portsmouth, under the supervision of Doctor George Burrows and Doctor Joanna Bucknall, is supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal).
