Biography
Poliksena Hardalova, born in Bulgaria, completed her initial training, equivalent to a Master's degree, at the National Academy of Theater and Cinema (NATFIZ) at the University of Sofia, as an actress and puppeteer, in 1991. The following academic year, 1992/ 93, was invited to teach at NATFIZ, as an invited assistant, functions in which she remained until the academic year 2005/2006. In that period, from 1999 to 2003, she was a full-time PhD student at NATFIZ, having completed her PhD in Theater Sciences and Theater Arts in 2008. From the academic year 2007/2008 to 2010/ 2011, she was an adjunct professor at NATFIZ. In 2011 she won an application to the European Grundtvig Assistantship Programme and was awarded a scholarship, having moved to Portugal, where she took up residence. Since the academic year 2013/2014, she has been a Drama teacher at the Higher School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ESE-IPP). Since 2022, she's Adjunct Professor of Drama. She has also collaborated with the Higher School of Music and Performing Arts, at IPP, teaching graduate and masters courses. She also works on Matosinhos Second Chance School project as a consultant and as Vice-President of AE2O, the institution that runs the school. Since moving to Portugal, she has always maintained contact with NATFIZ, in Bulgaria, where she taught, as a guest lecturer, from 2012/13 to 2016/17, the discipline of Forum Theater in a Master's Course in "Public Speach", a discipline that was created on her proposal and whose program she wrote.
She co-founded the social theater group TSVETE THEATRE in 1994, the first social theater in Bulgaria, and since that date has initiated and participated in more than 100 projects in the Balkans, Europe and the USA, particularly focused on mitigation and overcoming the consequences of the great contemporary civilizational conflicts and tensions. She thus accumulated a vast experience of artistic and theatrical work in different social issues, whether they are disadvantaged children and young people deprived of parental care, whether they are minority groups, young women, victims of trafficking, refugees, or families who suffered trauma from the war in the Balkans in 1999/2001 or the terrorist attacks in the US on 9/11/2001. His interests and practical and theoretical research are focused on exploring and understanding the potential of theater, and the arts in general, as tools for education and intervention in themes such as social inclusion, tolerance, domestic violence, human trafficking, prevention of addictions, active citizenship and civic participation of young people. She has been organizing and participating in multiple applied arts training initiatives, namely theater and puppetry, Forum Theatre, Image Theatre and Theatre of the Senses, aimed at a variety of audiences: children and young people at risk, young people with deviant behavior, victims of violence, but also artists, educators, social workers, students and professionals. She is an integrated researcher at CIPEM/INET (Research Center for Psychology and Music Education), CIIE (Center for Educational Research and Intervention) of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto and CIEG (Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies) at ISCSP-University of Lisbon.
