Debora Balardini

Debora Balardini is a Brazilian theater director, producer, and performer based in New York City. Balardini is the co-founder of Group .BR, New York City's only Brazilian theatre company. The Off-off Broadway play and its cast received 8 nominations to 2014 and 2015 Brazilian International Press Awards and a nomination for a 2014 New York Innovative Theatre Awards for best choreography.

Balardini is Co-Artistic Director of Nettles Artists Collective, a New York-based artist collective founded in 2005, with performing artist, Sandie Luna. With the Nettles, Balardini directed and co-produced Apple of My Eye (Menina dos Meus Olhos), the first ever professionally produced play written and performed by an artist with Down syndrome, Tathi Piancastelli, as well as a cast of 10 supporting actors. The play has been acknowledged by UNICEF for its inclusion in the arts initiative. Balardini also directed Bother Line, an Off-off Broadway one-woman show conceived and performed by Gio Mielle and produced by the Nettles, which premiered at Punto Space and at The Tank in 2018.

Additionally, Balardini is one of three co-founders of Punto Space, an event and performance venue, in Midtown, Manhattan, in 2014 and the theatre company that was opened from 2014 to 2019.

Balardini has also been influenced by Hatha Yoga philosophy and practice since becoming a Hatha RYT 2003.

Balardini's awards include the 2019 Social Impact & Arts Innovator award and 2016 Brazilian International Press Award.