Stephanie Lupo
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
Deeply interested in the role of the performer artist/creator/actor and by the concept of the performative act, she is most notably invested in the analysis of the creative process and the history of performance practices of the 20th century. She is also interested in the different contemporary aspects connected to the concept and the image of the artistic community, as well as the concepts of living alternatives through art. She is also invested in dramaturgy, writing and contemporary scenic languages, and in the connection between theater and performing arts.
She holds a Phd in Theater Studies from the Sorbonne University and a Master degree in Philosophy of Art. While working as actress and student of directing with Anatoli Vassiliev, she wrote a thesis on her pedagogical work based mostly on the creative process of the actor in Russian theater and Stanislavsky heritage. Within the Research department of Scuola Universitaria Professionale in Teatro di Movimento, she participates as associate researcher to an international program on Physical Theater aimed at retracing the common history between theater practices, dance and performance practices, from the perspective of the actor or performer’s body. In this context she has given lecture series on Action Art in the Fifties and Sixties (Happenings, Fluxus, GUTAI, Viennese actionnism…), on the birth of performance and the mutations of forms and theatrical languages from the Sixties to this day, and of revolutionary theater and art in the sixties. She was invited to give conference on this subject at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. She also lead researches on the actor in Polish theater mainly in Grotowsky, Lupa, Warlikowski theater.
AT THE ORIGINS OF PERFORMANCE AS A CONTESTING AND REBELIVE ART FORM
October 12, 2013
ZOA Festival (Zone of Artistic Occupation)
The Lodge, Paris
If performance art appears as the medium of the 1970s, developing the seeds of the artistic forms we know today, it is however in the two preceding decades that the arts start meeting one another, according to principles of acts in presence and crossings between disciplines and genres. These openings did not come as much from a worry about form as from a powerful spirit of protest that manifested itself in three continents engaged in the Second World War. In Japan, in the US and in Europe, Lettrism, Situationism, Happenings, Fluxus, Gutai, Direct Poetry and Viennese Actionism are thus born in the shadow of institutional art. With reference to the action painting developed by American painter Jackson Pollock in the US, these movements innovating the visual arts, music, theater and dance, gather around the term action art. The spirit of this period has everything to be a revolutionary avant-garde movement. Art serves as a medium as much as a manifesto. Opposing the barbarity of war conflicts and a reconstruction based upon capital and economic return, all categorization is then perceived as an oppression to a murderous and alienating society. It is in this context that currents and movements develop in a thirst for the purity of the artist, in the forms of experiments that want to be “real”. Opposed to a system of institutional, bourgeois and trade-oriented art, those works at the edge define themselves according to purposes that engage the artist in the direction of radical change, which, starting from the self, can spread to the entire world. Those see themselves as active in the border zones. They want to work as the vehicles for change. RADICALISM, UNSUBMISSION, CRITICAL POWER AND TOTAL GIVING ARE THEIR KEYWORDS. In this context, the body of the artist enters in action in the arts, her/his presence becoming entirely part of the work. The work transitions from the medium and the finished product to the ephemeral, unseizable, unsellable and uncategorizable movement of the artist. The gesture or the act resulting from it, become the agent of a rebellion in action. The notion of work of art cannot be measured any longer in terms of product and of specialistic appreciations. Art can then only be accomplished within the artist's life. Detached from all alienation and social chains, the artist becomes he who is in charge of removing masks, falsehoods and pretenses, he who is able of liberating and embodying life.
AT THE ORIGINS OF PERFORMANCE? (1) Art in the 50s and 60s, Dada, Pollock and action painting, Guy Debord and the situationist international
November 27, 2012
Philosophy cafe
Scuola Teatro Dimitri, Verscio, (CH)
PERFORMANCE CONFERENCES
His recent conferences are linked to research undertaken for several years around the origins of performative practices (art-action, happenings, performance, situationism...) and the philosophy of acting and acting in Polish theater of whom she knows many artists from the contemporary theater scene having made several stays in Poland.
FROM GROTOWSKI TO WARLIKOWSKI. VIEWS ON POLISH THEATER
November 12, 2013
Comedy by Clermont Ferrand (partnership with the Polish Institute of Paris), as part of the show Perturbations by Krystian Lupa
ART ACTION (1952-1968) RADICAL CHANGE
April 10, 2013
Louvre School, Paris
In collaboration with the Polychrome association
"If performance art appears to be the medium par excellence of the 70s, developing the seeds of artistic forms that we know today, it is however in the two preceding decades that the arts begin to come together, on the principles of acts in presence and crossings between disciplines and genres. The decompartmentalizations then result not so much from preoccupations with forms as from a powerful spirit of protest which manifested itself in the three continents engaged in the Second World War. In Japan, the United States and Europe, Lettrism, Situationism, Happenings, Fluxus, Gutai, Direct Poetry and Viennese Actionism were thus born on the margins of institutional art. In reference to action painting developed by the American painter Jackson Pollock in the United States, these movements which innovate in the plastic arts, music, theater and dance, grouped around the term action art. The spirit of this era has everything of a revolutionary avant-garde current. Art operates there as a means as well as a manifesto. In opposition to the barbarity of warlike conflict and a reconstruction based on capital and yield, any categorization is then perceived as oppression of a murderous and alienating society. It is in this context that currents and movements develop in a thirst for purity on the part of artists, in the form of experiments that aim to be “true”. Opposed to the system of an institutional, specialist, perverted, bourgeois and commercial art, those who work on the margins then define themselves based on goals which commit the artist in the direction of upheavals, which, starting with oneself, could extend to the world. They want to be active in demarcation zones. They would like to function as vehicles of change. Radicality, insubordination, critical power and expense are their key words. It is in this context that the artist's body comes into action in art, its presence becoming an integral part of the work. The work moves from the medium and the finished object to the movement of the artist, ephemeral, elusive, unsaleable and unclassifiable. The resulting gesture or act becomes the agent of a revolt in action. The notion of work is no longer measured in terms of the object created and the assessments of specialists. Art is now accomplished in the life of the artist. Detached from all alienation and social chains, the artist becomes the one in charge of unmasking masks and false pretenses, the one capable of freeing himself and becoming one with life. "
AT THE ORIGINS OF PERFORMANCE? (2) Art-action: Happenings, Fluxus and Gutai
March 8, 2013
Philosophy cafe
Scuola Teatro Dimitri, Verscio, (CH)