Stephanie Lake was born in Saskatoon, Canada, raised in Tasmania and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. She has choreographed for over 25 years and founded Stephanie Lake Company in 2014. Lake was appointed Resident Choreographer of The Australian Ballet in 2024 and Artist in Residence (AiR) of Semperoper Ballet, Dresden in 2025.
Her major works including The Chronicles, Manifesto, Colossus, Circle Electric, Pile of Bones and Double Blind have been performed across Australia and toured to 16 countries worldwide.
Lake has created works for the Nuremberg Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Queensland Ballet, Dancenorth, New Zealand Dance Company, Chunky Move, Tasdance, Expressions Dance Company, Beijing Dance/LDTX, Stompin and Frontier Danceland (Singapore) among others. She collaborates across theatre, film, opera, visual art and music video and has directed several large-scale public participation performances involving over 2500 participants.
Lake’s works have won Helpmann, Green Room and Australian Dance Awards for Outstanding Choreography and have been nominated for a Hong Kong Performance Award and a Buenos Aires Theatre Award for Best International Show.
She is the recipient of a prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, the Chloe Munro Fellowship, the Dame Peggy Van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship, and an Australia Council Fellowship for Dance. Her performance career spanned twenty years, during which she toured and danced extensively with Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and Phillip Adams’ BalletLab. Lake sits on the Victorian College of the Arts Advisory Board.
Nine dancers, nine drummers, nine drum kits. Manifesto sweeps you along on an irresistible wave, celebrating the consummate joy of being alive, infused with a healthy dose of optimism.
