Stéphanie Lupo works as a performing artist (stage director, performer, actress, dancer, author), creative coach, therapist and teacher.

 

She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the Sorbonne University, a professional diploma in Dramatic Art and Stage Directing from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théâtre in Lyon in collaboration with the Moscow Theater School of Dramatic Art, a Master in Philosophy, Aesthetics and Art Sciences, a BA in English Literature and Civilization.

 

After training as a professional dancer in her youth, she trained in drama and stage directing according to the Russian acting school method with the famous stage director, researcher and teacher Anatoli Vassiliev. For almost ten years, she studied and practiced with him, in the spirit of laboratory theater, the fundamentals of the art of the performer's living, creative, free and authentic process. She simultaneously learned the laws of acting, directing and dramaturgy. She has been trained to a rigorous working method and a high conception of art directly inherited from the great principles of the Moscow Art Theatre.

 

This work made her aware of the notion of inner self commitment, of "working on oneself" and of acting as an art. She went on to learn as a performer dancer and actress with Thomas Ostermeier, Meredith Monk, Nathalia Zvereva, Jan Lauwers, Yoshito Ohno and Kzrysztof Warlikowski, while taking a keen interest in a performative form of the living arts that she developed from her various apprenticeships.

 

She develops a practice between dance, theater and performance art, often based on her own writings. She has also staged pieces based on the  writings of Henri Miller, Oscar Wilde, Heiner Muller, Julian Beck, Marguerite Duras, Lalla Dev, Falk Richter, Alejandro Jodorowski... She showed her pieces in national theatres in France and in Switzerland, in art galleries and renowned festivals. As a performer, she has collaborated with Anatoli Vassiliev, Alexandra Badea, Yves Noel Genod, Krzysztof Garbaczewski, Cristian Soto, Fiorenza Menini, Chantal Ysermans...

 

She is interested in scenic art as a place of knowledge, of transformation, of authentic communication and healing powers as well as in the meaning and roles of beauty and art in society. She is a specialist in the history and practice of the origins of performance art in the 50s and 60s and in the art of the performer on stage as a creative process. She is very interested in the links between art and truth, in the encounter between the plasticity of bodies, creative gesture and authentic act through a form of scenography of space and bodies illuminated by a strong artistic presence and scenic truth.

 

Her practice brings together the languages of theater, dance and performance through the notion of a scenic « act » that summons a transformative, sometimes magical and sacred dimension. Her work aims to awaken the inner movement of performers to a high level of demand through the liberation and expression of great vitality. She aims for authenticity of life on stage.

 

She is the author of several theatrical works, including one on the theatrical pedagogy of Russian director Anatoli Vassiliev, « At the heart of theatrical pedagogy, rigor and anarchy », which won the prize for best theatrical work the year of its publication. One of her dramatic texts, « I want to talk about youth falling" (l'Arche éditeur), was included in the monologue entrance exam for the Strasbourg National Theatre School in France.

 

Transmission is part of her heritage and passion. She teaches an eclectic practice based on the teachings inherited from the great Eastern masters in the tradition of Stanislavski (authenticity, theater as art, development of the performer's creative personality, rigorous method of active text analysis for acting, text embodied in an alive way....), enriched by a practice that integrates the body, using dance theater or proposals that integrate performance art, which she also teaches as a subject in its own right.

 

She teaches in Switzerland, France and Europe in professional art schools (Ecole de Lacambre in Brussels, TNB, ENSATT, Accademia Dimitri, EDT91, Genève conservatory, etc.) and in several universities where she also conducts research into the work of C. Stanislavski, J. Grotowski, A. Vassiliev, Krystian Lupa, A. Jodorowski, Julian Beck and Anna Halprin.

 

Her scenic work is centered on the authentic life of the performer on stage, on the creative actor, on the living process against a backdrop of assiduous, precise, inventive and sincere rigor. It is oriented towards the singular creativity of each individual, and aims to raise awareness of an equally plastic and engaging aspect of body and space.

 

She also accompanies a number of professional artists on projects involving dramaturgy, acting and stage directing, or on performance art creation projects as a collaborator or as an artistic and creative coach within the framework of the support structure Stéphanie Lupo for Shambhala Ananda, which she created combining coaching, art and therapy for artists and creative projects to be born. She also offers support specifically for actors and artists in their solo or collective creative projects.

 

She works with a number of organizations, notably the Geneva-based association The Theater of Consciousness, of which she is artistic director. She regularly offers workshops and creative laboratories designed as powerful journeys through the art of scenic creation.