Resume
Ioli Filippakopoulou was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1987. She is an actress and movement specialist, with both undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2012) in London, from which she graduated with distinction. During her studies in the MA in Movement Teaching and Directing at RCSSD, she specialized in the methods of R. Laban, Contact Improvisation, Viewpoints, and Grotowski. After completing her postgraduate studies, Movement Specialist Sue Lefton became her mentor for several years, passing on the Pure Movement method, as developed by Trish Arnold and Litz Pisk.
For the last 13 years, she lived and worked in London, teaching movement, improvisation, and acting at the following drama schools: Rose Bruford (2018), Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2016 – 2024), East 15 (2019-2021), ArtsEd (2023), and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) (2021-2024). At LAMDA, she served as the head of the Movement department, overseeing and curating the curriculum for the BA Acting Course. At RCSSD, she directed the Research Module, guiding research teams focused on inclusivity, corporeality and the actor, the role of movement specialists in the theatrical process, and the development of a feminist approach to teaching.
As a movement specialist, Ioli has collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of England, the Bush Theatre, the Arcola Theatre, the Omnibus Theatre, and the New Diorama Theatre, among others. In July 2023, in collaboration with director Emily Louizou, she undertook the Movement and Choreographic curation for the performance Symptoms from the Lack of Weight by Giannis Skaragas, which was presented at the Little Theatre of Epidaurus as part of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival.
Since 2015, she has been a member of the Collide Theatre group, based in London, participating as both an actress and movement specialist in nine productions. Some of these include: 4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane (2015), Kafka’s Metamorphosis at Tristan Bates Theatre (2019), Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller at Ugly Duck Warehouse (2016), Troy by Dimitris Dimitriadis as part of the Voila Europe Festival (2019), The Coral by Georg Keiser at Finborough Theatre (2022), The Woman who Turned into a Tree by Lisa Langseth at Omnibus Theatre (2023), and Fabulous Creatures by Quentin Beroud and Emily Louizou at Arcola Theatre (2024). In 2019, Collide Theatre’s Metamorphosis was selected by the New Diorama Theatre as one of the 10 best theatre companies of the year.
From 2018 to 2021, she was a member of the Dialogue Recording Team as a Motion Director for the video game Baldur’s Gate, gaining experience in Motion Capture technology and overseeing the movement direction for the actors involved in the game’s production.
In the field of artistic education, in addition to exploring the individual expressive means of actors, Ioli has specialized in the ways in which an Ensemble, or Group, is formed. Together with the movement specialists at LAMDA, they developed a methodology around Ensemble creation, which they applied from 2021-2024 with BA Acting students.
Ioli returned permanently to Athens in May 2024, to the place where she grew up and where she has deep roots, with a desire to share and develop the knowledge and experiences she gathered in London. She loves the piano, music, and singing – and she also loves cats.