Elioa Steffen
Researcher
- Department
- DAS Research
- Functies
- Researcher
Researcher
Co-Artistic Coordinator: In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibilities, Queer Performance Pedagogy and Feedback (IPOP)
Elioa Steffen (She/her) is the Co-Artistic Coordinator for In Pursuit of Otherwise Possibilities, Queer Performance Pedagogy and Feedback (IPOP) an educational artistic research project within the ATD. IPOP is a cross-departmental project fostering collaboration and cross-pollination including between the master’s and bachelor’s programs. IPOP research question: How can the ATD, and universities more broadly, better support LGBTQ+ students including their well-being, artistic growth, and education development? How can the ATD and other institutions of higher learning incorporate queer artists and thinkers with their practices, theories, and histories into the pedagogy and what can queer ways of thinking and being offer to artistic education generally?
Beyond her work in IPOP, Elioa is an artist working in the fields of performance, facilitation, and curation. Her work focuses on the intersection of communal narratives, cultural norms, and systemic violence. With over 10 years of experience as a facilitator, Elioa crafts encounters that investigate the relationships between personal needs and communal truths. Heavily influenced by queer art lineages, Elioa’s work melds critical theory, camp, and drag in participatory performances that question audiences’ relationships to each other, power, and the state.
Elioa’s most recent performance Ephemeral Archives was a queer grieving ritual exploring invitation, haunting, and loss through clay sculpture, participation, and choreographic score. Elioa has been commissioned and produced by The Warp, DOOResidency, (Amsterdam) Gay City, On the Boards, Studio Current, (Seattle), Risk/Reward (Portland), Dixon Place (New York), and Vashon Center for the Arts (Vashon Island) among others. Their curation has been featured in the Special Effects Festival (New York), NW New Works Festival, as well as their own productions The Temenos Project and the Rain City Advice Hour (Seattle, WA). Elioa has studied with Anne Bogart’s SITI company, Gender Tender and Vanessa DeWolf. She holds a master’s degree from DAS Theatre, Amsterdam.
Research