Bettina Stöß was born in Rodalben/Pfalz, Germany in 1971. Since 1993 she has worked as a freelance photographer with a special focus on Dance and Theatre. Early on in her career she worked as an assistant with Andrew Wakeford (BFF) in Saarbrücken and Lois Greenfield in New York.
From the beginning Ms. Stöß has continually worked with world renown choreographers such as Pina Bausch, Birgit Scherzer, Susanne Linke, Christian Spuck, Stefan Thoss, Marco Goecke, Marguerite Donlon, Mario Schröder, and Gregor Zöllig, amongst many others. She also works as a freelance photographer for many various Theaters: Deutsche Oper Berlin, Ballet of the Oper Zürich, Ballet of the Aalto Theater Essen, Ballet of the Staatsoper Berlin, Dain ncetheater Bielefeld, Theater Dortmund, Ballet of the Oper Nürnberg, Staatstheater Saarbrücken, the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin and the Palucca School Dresden, to name a few.
In addition to this journalistic work, Ms. Stöß is passionate about the Portraiture of dancers. Her aesthetic approach focuses on capturing the intense dynamic of the moment. Almost all her works are characterized by precision, the ability to condense stage action to its core, and the physical, sensuous, and dramatic intensification of a staged situation. In 1999, the book of plates “Birgit Scherzer – Eine Retrospektive” was published. This was followed by the Pictorials „Tanzdekade – Zehn Jahre Donlon Dance Company“ (2011, K. Kieser publishing house) and „Inszenierungen“ (2011, Henschel publishing house), which documents the staging of 14 Operas by director Jakob Peters-Messer. Most recently, the Reclam publishing house released the illustrated book „Ballett heute“(2012) with pictures by Bettina Stöß.
Works by Ms. Stöß have been exhibited in numerous group shows e.g. „Angehaltene Zeit. Bilder vom Tanz“; Thomas Thorausch curator. This show premiered at C/O Berlin (2006), with subsequent touring around the world until 2011. For the Exhibition „TanzPortraits“ of the Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln she shot portraits for artists like Reinhild Hoffmann, Susanne Linke, Sasha Waltz, Martin Schläpfer, Christian Spuck, Marco Goecke, Arnd Wesemann, Vladimir Malakhov and many more.
Bettina Stöß lives and works in Berlin, Germany.