Julie Anne Stanzak is an internationally renowned dancer, performer and educator with a long career in Tanztheater and a sustained commitment to the transmission of contemporary performance practices. Her artistic research centres on stage presence, the dramaturgy of movement, and the relationship between gesture, memory and human experience.
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised in New Orleans, Stanzak began classical dance training as a child. She studied ballet through summer programmes in New York and Washington, D.C., and later continued her training in Minneapolis in the Russian ballet tradition, alongside acting studies at the Children’s Theatre Company.
Alongside her performing career, Stanzak is engaged in the restaging and transmission of the Tanztheater repertoire. She collaborates with the Pina Bausch Foundation and contributes to rehearsal direction and creative processes.
Stanzak leads workshops and artistic residencies in Europe, the United States and Japan, working with companies, universities and theatre institutions. In Italy, she teaches at the Nico Pepe Civic Academy of Dramatic Arts in Udine, Teatro Stabile della città di Napoli and Nuovo Teatro Comunale Ruvo di Puglia. Her pedagogy integrates movement quality, body awareness and performative authenticity, and includes inclusive artistic projects with performers with disabilities.
