Ivan Stanev (Bulgarian: Иван Станев, 29 June 1959 – 1 December 2023) was an author, theatre and film director, scenographer and new media artist, who had been living in Berlin since 1988, and more recently in Paris.
Biography
Ivan Stanev was born in the city of Varna, Bulgaria. His mother, Donka Raikova, was a lawyer and poet and his father, Stanju Stanev, was an engineer and photographer. He enrolled into a German-language high school, while also studying intensively French, Russian and English.
He got his degree in Theatre Directing from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia. While a student in the academy, he founded a clandestine avant-garde theatre group, which led to severe conflicts with censorship in Communist Bulgaria. Not allowed to work as a theatre director anymore, he went on to study philosophy at the Sofia University, and started to translate the works of Theodor Adorno and Heiner Muller, in the meantime writing plays, poems and essays, all to be published much later.
In 1988, he was invited to present his theatre production called The Wound Woyzeck at a theatre festival in West-Berlin. He decided not to return to Bulgaria and to live in exile instead. He began to write in German and to stage his own plays in Berlin.
Since 1999, he has also worked on several major Franco-German theatre productions. Due to his growing interest in visual arts, he directed and produced two experimental films: Villa Dei Misteri and Luxor Las Vegas. In 2009 he finished his first independent feature film, shot on 35mm, called Moon Lake, produced by Donka Angelova.
He lived in Berlin and Paris and worked in both Germany and France.
He died on December 1, 2023.
Writings
In Bulgarian
The Exterminated Denizens (excerpts from the sketchbooks of a démodé modernist) – poetry, drama, theory: 1985–1987. Publishing house "Virga", Sofia 1994, (Bulgarian: Избитите обитатели (из тетрадките на един закъснял модернист) – поезия, драма, теория 1985–1987)
1982 Wildwechsel (Deer Path) after Kroetz – banned performance
1984 The Love for Three Oranges by Ivan Stanev after Gozzi
1985, 1986 Alchimie de la douleur (The Alchemy of Sorrow) collage by Ivan Stanev after Chekhov, Wittgenstein, Baudelaire, Ionesco – banned performance
1987, 1988 Woyzeck. Die Wunde Woyzeck. Bildbeschreibung (The Wound Woyzeck) after Büchner / Müller, Theatre Sofia, Hebbel Theater Berlin
1989 Betrogen / Gestern an einem sonnigen Nachmittag (Betrayal/Yesterday on a Sunny Afternoon) after Harold Pinter / Heiner Müller, Studiotheater München
1990/91 Schuld und Bühne (Rhyme and Punishment) by Ivan Stanev, Hebbel Theater Berlin, Eurokaz Zagreb
1991 Hermaphroditus by Ivan Stanev, Hebbel Theater Berlin, Kampnagelfabrik Hamburg, Mickery Amsterdam, Theater der Welt Essen
1992 Brüderchen und Schwesterchen (Brother and Sister), by Ivan Stanev, Podewil Berlin
1995 Die Möwe (The Seagull) by Chekhov, Volksbühne Berlin
1998 Sprechen-Schweigen (Speak-Fall Silent) after Ionesco/Wittgenstein, Podewil Berlin
1998 Good night, ladies after Shakespeare/Müller, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin
1999 Histoire de l'œil (Story of the Eye) by Georges Bataille, Théâtre de la Manufacture Nancy, Theatre Sofia
1999 Don Juan im Kumpelnest 3000 zu Berlin (Don Juan in Kumpelnest 3000 in Berlin), Sophiensaele Berlin
2000 Le bleu du ciel (The Blue of Noon) by Georges Bataille, Sophiensaele Berlin, Théâtre de Chartres, La rose des vents Lille, Théâtre Antoine Vitez Aix-en-Provence
2001 Villa Dei Misteri by Ivan Stanev, Sophiensaele Berlin, Théâtre de la Bastille Paris, Théâtre Antoine Vitez Aix-en-Provence, La rose des vents Lille, FFT Düsseldorf
2002 Luxor Las Vegas by Ivan Stanev, Sophiensaele Berlin
2004 Hollywood Forever by Ivan Stanev, Hebbel Theater Berlin, Le Maillon Strassburg, La rose des vents Lille, FFT Düsseldorf, Gessnerallee Zürich
2004 Moon Lake, after a poem by Ivan Stanev, Norwegian Theatre Academy Fredrikstad
2005 Digging Materials (Bulgarian: Изкопни материали) by Ivan Stanev after Platonov, Theater Sfumato, Sofia
2009, 2010 Mord im Burgtheater (Murder in Burgtheater) by Ivan Stanev, Volksbühne Berlin, Le Maillon Strassburg
2011 Rustschuk – Die gerettete Zunge (Rustschuk – The Saved Tongue) by Elias Canetti, Theater Osnabrück
2013 Bitte bei TOTLEBEN klingeln – written and directed by Ivan Stanev, Wonderloch Kellerland / Berlin
2015 TTV. Live from Todessa – Totleben TV
2017 Scherzo di Follia – written and directed by Ivan Stanev, Kopfgeldjäger, Berlin
2018 Place Fantôme – written and directed by Ivan Stanev, Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Berlin
↑Die neue Freiheit. Herausgeber: Dorte Lena Eilers. Verlag: Theater der Zeit, Berlin, 2011 ISBN978-3-940737-97-7
↑Das andere Ende der Sinnenlust. Ivans Stanevs Inszenierung von "Hermaphroditus" nach Antonio Beccadelli in the Hebbel Theater. Von Christoph Funke. Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 27.10.1991
Armer Harlekin mit rotem Beil. Ivan Stanevs "Schuld und Bühne" im Berliner Hebbel Theater. By Christoph Funke. Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 01.11.1991
Es geht nur weiter, wenn man die Dinge auseinander hält. Künstliche Katastrophen und der fremde Blick des Theaters auf uns. Über Ivan Stanevs Stück "Villa dei misteri". Von Dirk Baecker. Frankfurter Rundschau, 05.04.2002