Ivan Stanev was born in the city ofVarna, Bulgaria. His mother, Donka Raikova, was a lawyer and poet and his father, Stanju Stanev, was an engineer and photographer. He enrolled into a German-language high school, while also studying intensively French, Russian and English. He got his degree in Theatre Directing from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia. While a student in the academy, he founded a clandestine avant-garde theatre group, which led to severe conflicts with censorship in Communist Bulgaria. Not allowed to work as a theatre director anymore, he went on to study philosophy at the Sofia University, and started to translate the works of Theodor Adorno and Heiner Muller, in the meantime writing plays, poems and essays, all to be published much later. In 1988, he was invited to present his theatre production called The Wound Woyzeck at a theatre festival in West-Berlin. He decided not to return to Bulgaria and to live in exile instead. He began to write in German and to stage his own plays in Berlin. Since 1999, he has also worked on several major Franco-German theatre productions. Due to his growing interest in visual arts, he directed and produced two experimental films: Villa Dei Misteri and Luxor Las Vegas. In 2009 he finished his first independent feature film, shot on 35 mm, called Moon Lake, produced by Donka Angelova. He currently lives in Berlin and Paris and works in both Germany and France.
Writings
;In Bulgarian
The Exterminated Denizens - poetry, drama, theory: 1985-1987. Publishing house "Virga", Sofia 1994,
;In German
1992 Lapsus Linguae, Autoren-Kollegium Berlin
2000 Postskriptum, a poem, :de:Juliettes Literatursalon|Juliettes Literatursalon Berlin
2002 Villa Dei Misteri, :de:Juliettes Literatursalon|Juliettes Literatursalon Berlin
2003 Luxor Las Vegas, Konkursbuch Verlag Berlin/Tübingen
2009 Moon Lake, a poem, Publishing house Altera
2017 Abrasax Asteroiden, a poem, Bleibende Steinzeit/Tumult/Sonderzahl Wien
1985, 1986 Alchimie de la douleur collage by Ivan Stanev after Chekhov, Wittgenstein, Baudelaire, Ionesco – banned performance
1987, 1988 Woyzeck. Die Wunde Woyzeck. Bildbeschreibung after Büchner / Müller, Theatre Sofia, Hebbel-Theater Berlin
1989 Betrogen / Gestern an einem sonnigen Nachmittag after Harold Pinter / Heiner Müller, Studiotheater München
1990/91 Schuld und Bühne by Ivan Stanev, Hebbel-Theater Berlin, Eurokaz Zagreb
1991 Hermaphroditus by Ivan Stanev, Hebbel-Theater Berlin, Kampnagelfabrik Hamburg, Mickery Amsterdam, Theater der Welt Essen
1992 Brüderchen und Schwesterchen , by Ivan Stanev, Podewil Berlin
1995 Die Möwe by Chekhov, Volksbühne Berlin
1998 Sprechen-Schweigen after Ionesco/Wittgenstein, Podewil Berlin
1998 Good night, ladies after Shakespeare/Müller, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin
1999 Histoire de l'œil by Georges Bataille,Théâtre de la Manufacture Nancy, Theatre Sofia
1999 Don Juan im Kumpelnest 3000 zu Berlin , Sophiensaele Berlin
2000 Le bleu du ciel by Georges Bataille, Sophiensaele Berlin, Théâtre de Chartres, La rose des vents Lille, Théâtre Antoine Vitez Aix-en-Provence
2001 Villa Dei Misteri by Ivan Stanev, Sophiensaele Berlin, Théâtre de la Bastille Paris, Théâtre Antoine Vitez Aix-en-Provence, La rose des vents Lille, FFT Düsseldorf
2002 Luxor Las Vegas by Ivan Stanev, Sophiensaele Berlin
2004 Hollywood Forever by Ivan Stanev, Hebbel-Theater Berlin, Le Maillon Strassburg, La rose des vents Lille, FFT Düsseldorf, Gessnerallee Zürich
