Theater director / Performer / Actress
Anja Demidova
SELECTED WORKS
IN DEVELOPMENT
What if orgasm is the last process where we can be truly honest?
Orgasm interests us both as a direct experience and as a metaphor, both as an ultimate pleasure and an ultimate despair. Through acting, movement, and participatory practices, we explore the myths and social constructs surrounding orgasm and question how history, gender stereotypes, and cultural narratives have shaped our perception of it.
We ask ourselves: What is the last realm of unfiltered honesty? Who controls narratives about Orgasm? Who controls narratives at all? And how does Orgasm relate to social processes and personal experience? Can we free it from its metaphor and reclaim its essential nature? Read More...
Rebranding of menstruation, bloody tragedy, & the endometrium drop-off.
28 is a theater performance based on the play 28 Days by Olga Shiliaeva. Raw energy, provocation, irony, and hidden truths made visible. Menstruation is not taboo here, but celebrated as power.
The performance brings 1 actress and 28 men on stage to talk about menstruation. The play questions stereotypes: we are taught that during PMS women are “irrational,” but what if it is the opposite? What if PMS is the moment we see the world exactly as it is, and our anger has a real cause?
Why do we want to get rid of PMS? What if we need PMS to see this clearly?
PRESS
ARTIST STATEMENT
I make visually striking, surreal performances built as liminal rituals.The performance often begins before the first scene: the audience crosses into a world with its own rules, where reality can crack open for a moment. I want that crack to be physical.I mostly work with large ensembles, because I think in constellations: multiple bodies, actions, and rhythms unfolding at once. Live music is central, whether it is a DJ or a band. I think of music not as an accompaniment but as an active force inside the performance.I build pieces through training and etudes — contact, impulse, rhythm, endurance — held by strict discipline as the doorway to freedom. I aim for a rehearsal room that is rigorous, held, and brave: a space where performers can go beyond their assumed limits.Humor is essential to me. Throughout theatre history, humor has been a way to break taboo and speak about what society prefers to silence. I work within that tradition.
SHORT BIO
Anja Demidova is a Berlin-based theatre director and interdisciplinary artist, originally from Moscow, Russia. In 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and following anti-war protests and political pressure, Anja moved to Germany and began rebuilding her artistic life from scratch, forming new collaborations, contexts, and languages for her work.Trained in classical drama and the Stanislavski tradition, she later moved toward physical theatre and contemporary performance, building a practice that bridges psychological precision with a highly physical, image-driven stage language.Her work is known for large ensembles, rigorous rehearsal processes, and live music as an active presence onstage.Anja’s performances create a liminal space: the audience is invited into a world where social norms and mechanisms of power become tangible.With a background in visual arts, she places strong emphasis on scenographic thinking: baroque layering, precise composition, and a dense economy of detail where nothing is accidental. Masks, altered faces, smoke, and shifting light frequently appear as tools to create a dreamlike space in which reality can be recognized from an unexpected angle.She also runs educational projects and mentoring formats for theatre-makers, sharing practical knowledge on production and mobility. Anja is the author of the Telegram channel Делай Театр, where she curates grants, open calls and international opportunities for theatre professionals worldwide., where she curates grants, open calls and international opportunities for theatre professionals worldwide.