In this intellectual environment, she began to create works of street theater, with the goal of engaging audiences politically.
[3] She joined the Teatro Experimental do Negro, a theater company founded in rejection of blackface performances, in Rio and later in São Paulo.
Santos rejected invitations to move to the then-Soviet Union and instead chose to self-exile in Africa, where she stayed for around five years.
[3] In 1986, she was selected by the Black Women's Collective of São Paulo to run for the office of state deputy for the Brazilian Democratic Movement, but she was not elected.
In September 1993, the city legislator Vital Nolasco of the Communist Party of Brazil awarded her the honorary title of Cidadã Paulistana.