Stella (Styliani) Dimitrakopoulou

Dr Stella Dimitrakopoulou is a dance artist, researcher and academic.

In 2016 she completed her practice-based PhD research in ‘Creative Practice: Dance’ (Trinity Laban, London) in which she looked into ‘(Ιl)legitimate Performances: Copying, Authorship and the Canon’. In 2009 she graduated with distinction from the ‘MA Dance-Theatre: The Body in Performance’ (LABAN, London). In her MA research she worked with food as a means of investigating the intermingling of public and private spaces. She also holds a diploma in Dance Teaching from the Professional School of Dance of D. Grigoriadou (Athens, 2006) and an MSc in Mining Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (2010).

As a Lecturer in Dance she works at the University of Peloponnese in the Department of Performing and Digital Arts (2019-2022) and in the Department of Theatre Studies (2018-today). She also teaches dance and movement for actors at the Traga Professional Drama School (2019-today).

As a dance researcher she worked at the project “How to dance in times of Crisis” (2016-2018), a research and educational program in Berlin and Athens, organized by Weinmeisterhaus e.V. and LUNA PARK in cooperation with the international dance festival “Tanz im August” and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs and Youth. Her most recent research “Teaching dance in digital environments” (2022) was published at the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance.

As an artist, she has presented 30 original artworks that take the form of live performances, videos and installations. She is currently interested in the body and its relationship to technology and to nature.

She co-runs the research project ‘Philosophy on our feet’ (2014) within which she has co-convened several Performance Philosophy workshops and has organized the 2nd International Symposium Performance Philosophy School of Athens (2017) in collaboration with the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST) and the Performance Philosophy Network.

As a dancer/performer in the past 18 years she has worked in more that 55 projects with international companies such as: Yelp Dance Co (2021), Clara J:son Borg (2021), Dora Garcia (2018-19), Synthesis 748 (2018), Les Gens d’Uterpan (Documenta 14, 2017), Tino Sehgal (Palais De Tokyo 2016, TATE Modern 2012), William Hunt (Siobhan Davies Studios 2013), Patrick Staff (Chelsea Space 2014, TATE Modern 2012), Lea Anderson (Southbank Centre 2011) and others.

She also works as a dramaturg for various dance companies (eg. Synthesis 748, Luna Park, A priori dance co), as movement director (Aliki Knutsen 2018, Womans Hour 2014, Nasreen Baharouni 2014) and as project manager (Luna Park 2016-18, Anna Adhal 2015, Tino Sehgal 2014).

The State Scholarship Foundation (IKY), the Greek Ministry of Culture, Artworks (SNF), DanceWEB, The J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, NEON and Trinity Laban have supported her academic and artistic work.