She started her career as author, director and actress in 1968. Worked in several plays until 1977, with Antunes Filho, Antonio Abujamra and Fauzi Arap, among others. In 1979 specializes in mime in London and developed her first solo: "Denise Stoklos - One Woman Show", performing in England and France. In 1982, studied in California and created her second solo, "Elis Regina". In 1983 performed another solo, "An Adult Orgasm", for two years in South America, Europe and Brazil.

In 1987, with a Fulbright Commission grants, premieres "Mary Stuart" in New York in the season of commemoration the La Mama 25th anniversary. Due to the great success of public, the season was extended and she was invited to premiere new works every year at the La Mama in New York. “Hamlet in Irati" and "House" followed. In 1992, she created, wrote, directed and acted in her new Essential Theater play, "500 years - a Fax from Denise Stoklos to Christopher Columbus".

In 1993, she was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship as an author, and published the novel Tomorrow It will be Late and After Tomorrow doesn’t Exist. In 1994 she wrote a version of the Greek myth and created "DES-Medéia".

She was acclaimed as the best performer of all the Edimburgh arts festival in 1994, the biggest and the most important arts festival in the world.

Since 1987, she takes her work to New York, always at the La Mama Theater. She is the performer, author and theater director, who most performed its works in the world, having already participated of important events, always with great impact, in thirty one countries, performing her plays in seven languages: English, Frenchman, Spanish, German, Russian, Ukrainian and Portuguese.

In 1993, after twenty five years of uninterrupted activities, she published the following books:

Essential theater (on her theater), Types (poetry), 500 years - a Fax for Columbus (play), Tomorrow It Will be too Late and After Tomorrow does not Exist (novel), Mary Stuart (subtext of her play), DES-Medea (unabridged adaptation). Has presented innumerable lectures and workshops in international theater schools and her work has been studied several times in universities in the United States, such as the New York University, Princeton and Georgetown.

She has also devoted herself to other artistic languages: she presented in Stockholm, for an audience of 4,000 people, songs composed, played and sung by her alone in the stage, untitled "Meteor Garden". She presented an exhibition of her photographs, inspired by Nina Simone’s songs at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in Rio de Janeiro, "Nina Simone sings for us".

Her work was given applauses and an almost devoted admiration by audiences and specialized critics all over the world. She was the first Brazilian actress to perform in Moscow, Peking, Taipei, Ukraine and several other countries. In her second visit to China, the Denise Stoklos Festival, consisting of one week of performances of several plays of her repertoire, was carried through as a tribute to her. In 1997, she performed at the important Opera House, when she was considered the best actress of the Australian Arts Festival.

In 1995, she was awarded the medal of honor of the Rio Branco order, granted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty) to prominent personalities who have significantly contributed to the promotion of Brazil's relations with the world.

In 1996, she premiered "Heavier than Air - Santos Dumont". In 1997, she staged "Civil Disobedience", based on texts by Henry David Thoreau."Dissonant Voices" (1999) is a reflection on the 500 years of Brazil. In 2000, presented at the La Mama Theater in New York "Louise Bourgeois: I do, I undo, I redo”, with the set created especially by the great sculptor, whose texts are also performed in this play. In 2001, "Calendar of the Rock" had its premiere, based on the works of Gertrude Stein.

In the first half of 2000, she was invited teacher at the New York University, to teach about her method, the Essential Theater, in the Composition Performance course of the Department of Performance Studies for master’s and doctor’s students.

She created a play called “Louise Bourgeois: I do, I undo, I redo”. Besides being the performance’s central character, LOUISE BOURGEOIS becomes partner of Denise Stoklos, especially by preparing for the set one of her famous installations, a cell. The set/installation is composed by steel and glass sculptures, representing a cell, stairs, and a mirror. Several other objects made by her compose the set. The installation is of great interest to the public, being a work by such an important contemporary artist, so it might be opened for public visitation during the day, followed by a video about the sculptor and who did a set design especially for it.

In 2011, based on the text of Hermam Melville, “Bartlebly, the Scrivener”, she created a solo play, as the most of her plays, and adapted to her Essential Theatre, where the narrator and the actor are the same, where there is no separation beside the time (in the book the action is in 1853), the place, the profession, even the gender, the nationality keeping them apart. Even the title of play, here is taken from the motto of Bartlebly but with an interrogation, when again the presence of the actor is acknowledge as the desire to face the system as the character of Melville does, although the actor adds its doubt, bringing the discussion that we all probably are not so radical as this so well knowed character in the literature is.

She frequently performs in more than thirty countries, amongst them: Germany (Berlin, Braunschweig, Bremen, Cologne, Essen, Freiburg, Hamburg), Argentina (Buenos Aires, Cordoba), Australia (Sydney), Austria (Vienna), Belgium (Brussels), China (Peking), Colombia (Bogota, Cali, Manizales), Cuba (Havana), Denmark (Copenhagen), Scotland (Edinburgh) Spain (Madrid, Sitges, Cadiz), United States (New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, San Francisco), Finland (Tampeere), France (Paris, Avignon), Holland (Amsterdam), England (London), India (New Delhi), Ireland (Dublin), Israel (Tel Aviv), Italy (Rome), Mexico (Mexico City, Monterrey), Norway (Oslo), Portugal (Lisbon, Porto), Rumania (Bucharest, Brasov), Russia (Moscow), Switzerland (Zurich, Bern, Geneva), Sweden (Stockholm), Taiwan (Taipei), the Ukraine (Karkhiv), Uruguay (Montevideo), Japan (Tokyo).

DENISE STOKLOS and the ESSENTIAL THEATER

Denise Stoklos believes that her theater can change the world - and she does it. It is not for no reason that her expressive face symbolizes this summer’s theater events. She is like a flame that passes above the stage and the audience, burning all that is still. I do not remember seeing so often – if at all - as much internal and external force in only one person. A master of expression, Stoklos is at the same time intelligent, funny and shiningly tragic. Its 'Essential Theater' transforms and changes the world. Can theater change the world at last? They say no, but Denise Stoklos’ theater can. The spectator is no longer the same after seeing it. Stoklos is like Don Quixote, in his solitary war against cynicism and egoism. The feelings of the audience were very well expressed by the director of the Festival, Viveca Bandler, who said to have lived so much time, only to be able to witness this exhibition. Kirsikka Moring, Helsingin Sanomat - Helsinki/Finlândia – 16/08/92

Denise Stoklos’ Essential Theater places the main focus on the live substance, the actor, with its resources: voice, body, intelligence, intuition. Large productions with enormous sets and technological resources tend to leave in the background the research of the human being, which is very delicate and requires sensitivity, true commitment and lots of courage. Below, the Essential Theater by Denise Stoklos:

“This possibility of choosing is what delights me in theater. Thus, I choose the Essential Theater for me (…) That theater that has the minimum effect, the minimum. And that contains the maximum theatrality in itself. That in the figure of the human being onstage a unique alchemy is carried through: the one where the reality of representation (of the re-presentation) is more vibrant than chronological time. It should criticize this time, disclose this time. In this end of century, theater must reaffirm the essential direction as much more evident that dismissible substance. I want to substitute the fancy of theatrical composition with the live presence of the actor (…) engaged in history with its idiosyncrasies, without manufactured resources, clear as water in the source." Essential Theater Manifest, 1987

"Art, in a certain way, in painting or music, is at all times interested in only two subjects: freedom and love. The same happens with my theater. We need to expand our limits, as much as people, as regarding the limits of the community, the limits of the State. Our function, while we are here on Earth, is to expand these limits, so that the next generation can expand theirs, and humanity can evolve spiritually. We are only one link in this chain of evolution. To be here and to allow limits to crystallize is too small. We need to expand these talents that are suffocated." Abre Aspas Magazine

"What I do is similar to music with voice. I almost decompose words, so that we can go deeper on it, I use a lot of repetition, to go into another level, deeper. To dismantle daily life. And to work with other languages gives a nice experience on this. In addition, it gives me the opportunity to check this theater and to see if it really talks to the nature human being, who is universal. Because theater that is not universal does not work everywhere." Abre Aspas Magazine

"I always write my plays to be read in different levels. It is possible to read at the simplest level. It is also possible to read at a metaphorical, deeper level. So, the play is for any public: an illiterate, laborer, or philosophy teacher. Every one has a background, and theater is for all of them. It is not something elitist. I create a format that can be seen as comedy or as tragedy. If it is regarded at all three, it is even better, because from there they are with me in my trip. My trip happens in all three, the simple, the medium and the deep." Abre Aspas Magazine

“Society really needs two things, exactly: bread and circus. We all need bread, that is, matter, and the circus, poetry. We need to eat as much we need theater. And theater is the deepest way of communicating in art, because it is made by live people with live people. That person, who is in the stage, is aging at the same time that the person seated in the auditorium. It is like a love affair, as a sexual intercourse, where two people are in interaction. It is a sacred thing. People leave their house, leave their children, and close their books, to see something that belongs to them. And when the leave, they are better, wiser. Hence, theater has to present different prisms, so that one can grow. When I go to the theater, I am growing." Abre Aspas Magazine

"The actress deserves a thought of recognition and appreciation for its presentation in which she offered the possibility of living a moment under the sign of perfection." Adrian Popescu, Transylvanian Gazette, Rumania, 4/30/93.

"Actress with the energy of a tiger that works with its voice above of the normal possibilities of the vocal chords." Elikim Iaron Maariv, Tel Aviv/Israel, 5/5/93.

"Great expressivity and emotive force." Xinhua News, Peking/China, 5/27/92.

"(…) a new critical vocabulary has to be created to deal with this phenomenon." Kavita Nagpal, Hindustan Times, New Delhi/India, 5/31/91.

“Pure theatrality. With an untiring joy she discovers in the deep layers the meanings of reality and modifies our habits to see things. She enchants, confuses, frightens. Her plays are created through processes that last years. The goal is the balance between linguistic and body movements. For this challenge, the bigger the venue, the better. From 1,000, it starts to feel comfortable. Every time the linguistic versatility, polyglot, surprises. Her performance here in German offers linguistic cascades that would make any native speaker to choke. She resolves them without problems." Michael Meiger, Tageszeitung, Cologne/Germany, 8/26/92.

"(…) a bomb devastates the Alhambra room. Its energy breaks down, and thus, disarranges everything. With an absolutely subversive register of voice and hallucinating movements, she uses her energy as a detonator for its delirious monologue." Francine Collet, Le Courrier, Geneve/Suíça, 9/11/92.

"One of the most important artists of the world in this style of theater." Michael Pedretti, Movement Theatre International, Philadelphia/United States, 3/7/90.

"(…) a new style of theater has been created." Tove Ellefsen, Ursining Ensamkamp, Stockholm /Sweden, 8/9/92.

"The best performer of all the Edinburgh Festival" Michael Coveney, The Observer, London, 9/20/1994.

"She is in one of the foremost places in the scene, not only of Latin American theater, but of the universal theater." Alberto Minero, El Diario, New York/United States, 12/5/96.

"It is only January, but I do not believe that we will see another complete talent like this in Sydney this year." Stephen Dunne, Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, 1/13/1997.

"Denise Stoklos arrives, acts and shines in Havana" Annia Martí, GRANMA International, Havana/Cuba, 5/21/2001

"Perhaps it is legitimate to assume that does not exist in the professional world another artist so prepared as Denise Stoklos. Her physical expressiveness is simply fantastic." Lionel Fischer, Tribuna da Imprensa, Rio de Janeiro/Brazil, 7/19/2001

PLAYS CREATED BY DENISE STOKLOS THAT SHE PERMANENTELY PERFORMS AS HER REPERTOIRE:

2011 I would prefer not
2004 Olhos Recém-Nascidos
2001 Calendário da Pedra
2000 Louise Bourgeois - Faço, Desfaço, Refaço
1999 Vozes Dissonantes
1997 Desobediência Civil
1996 Mais Pesado Que o Ar/Santos Dumont
1995 Elogio
1993 Jardim de meteoros
1994 Nina Simone sings for us
1994 Des-Medéia
1993 Amanhã Será Tarde e Depois de Amanhã nem Existe
1992 500 Anos - Um Fax de Denise Stoklos para Cristóvão Colombo
1990 Casa
1988 Hamlet em Irati
1987 Denise Stoklos in Mary Stuart
1986 Habeas Corpus
1982 Elis Regina
1982 Maldição
1980 One Woman Show
1973 Cadillac de Lata
1971 Mar Doce Prisão
1970 Vejo o Sol
1969 A Semana
1968 Círculo na Lua, Lama na Rua