Fernanda Costa was born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and began her dance studies with classical ballet and Jazz Dance. In Salvador she worked with choreographers Jorge Silva, Vera Passos and Matias Santiago.

In 2007 she joined the Bahia Folkloric Ballet, where she studied the techniques of Martha Graham, Lester Horton, Afro-Brazilian dances and Orixá dances. In 2009, she completed her degree in Dance at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). In 2010, she became a member of Companhia Dance Brazil, under the direction of Jelon Vieira with performances at The Joyce Theater in New York. Throughout her career, she performed in the musical The Lion King in Hamburg, São Paulo and the Netherlands.

In São Paulo, she worked at Companhia de Danças Diadema, the theater company Pia Fraus and the musical Nice work if you can get it directed by José Possi Neto.
Fernanda is currently a researcher at the Postgraduate Program in Culture and Society – UFBA. Her artistic-academic research is based on cultural studies, and on studies of the body and identities of black women through a critical perspective of coloniality.

In 2019, in Berlin, she worked at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse in the play Aesthetics of Color inspired by the life and work of Jean Michel Basquiat. In Salvador, she joined the Castro Alves Theater Ballet, a public company in the state of Bahia.
Caminhos das Águas – Unstoppable Flow (2024) is the debut of Fernanda Costa as choreographer at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.