Biography

Efrat Stempler is a choreographer, dramaturge, director, performer, and lecturer. Born and raised in Tel Aviv, she has been living and working in Zurich since 2018, where she teaches movement in the Department of Performing Arts and Film at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

She studied at the Telma Yelin School of the Arts and graduated with honors from the

Theatre Directing Program at Tel Aviv University in 2001. 2021 she finished her postgraduate studies in Theater directin in the ZHdK.

Between 1996 and 2002, she performed with the Bat-Sheva Ensemble and the Barak Marshall Dance Company, collaborating with a range of choreographers and artists in Israel.

In 2002, she moved to Germany and joined Tanzkompanie Oldenburg and MS Schrittmacher. That same year, she began her ongoing artistic collaboration with choreographer Martin Stiefermann, working as both performer and artistic co-director on numerous dance, theatre, and participatory projects.

In 2006, she founded cie Efrat Stempler in Berlin. With the premiere of SHU SHU at DOCK 11, she established a distinctive choreographic practice that combines dance, performance, dramaturgy, and visual media. The company’s productions have been presented at international festivals throughout Europe and Asia.

Alongside her work as an independent choreographer, Stempler has created movement and choreography for numerous theatre productions, collaborating with directors including Wojtek Klemm and Mark Zurmühle.

In 2009, she co-founded the artistic label Less Mess with Martin Stiefermann, developing interactive, participatory, and installation-based works that explore new forms of audience engagement.

As a curator, she initiated the festival The Smart, the Wicked, the Simple, and the One Who Doesn't Know How to Ask and co-curated the POST Festival at DOCK 11 in Berlin.

She has also developed a wide range of projects with children, adolescents, and young adults. In 2020, she directed #peergünnt, a large-scale participatory performance with 42 teenagers at the Zurich Opera House.

Efrat Stempler’s artistic practice moves between choreography, theatre, dramaturgy, and participatory performance. Her work explores the relationship between the individual and society, creating spaces for encounter, reflection, and dialogue through embodied experience.