Lulu Helbæk

Lulu Helbæk is an experienced creative director and director with over 15 years of experience in the production of international ceremonies, shows, theatre and videos. She started in the field of music videos before moving on to special events, ceremonies and shows of many different genres, as well as working, along the way, as a content director and a developer of interactive video concepts with physical performance, to great success. She is known as a highly imaginative, out-of-the-box thinker, original concept creator and versatile live events director. Her work combines physical theatre, technology and creative strategies, all put to the service of a clear artistic vision. One of the main focuses of her work is her effort to bring the audience into a different dimension, to discover an angle of the story that hasn’t been told before. She is strongly inspired by spaces and the story behind them. Even when working on ceremonies and institutional events, generally considered less narrative shows, she seeks to reveal the humanity hidden in every character. And the venue of the show itself is often one of the main characters in her work; infused with beauty and meaning, the space comes to life before the audience's eyes. The other main focus of her work is music as a fundamental inspiration for the construction of images and worlds. She also develops the spaces and set design herself, as a starting point for the story. As a result of her studies of contemporary art, the physicality of the story expressed through dance and physical performance merges with the space itself, as if one was the natural expression of the other. In her work, she drafts the initial study and then guides it to the concept creation. She loves to shape creative teams, mixing people from different fields and backgrounds, and then lead them all the way through the show, focusing also on the secondary art direction of the communication media. From Turin Winter Olympic Ceremony in 2006 to the Ceremonies of Sochi 2014, she faced the most complex and challenging shows in the world as Director at Balich Wonder Studio, where she was also the Head of Creative putting together different teams for the various shows. In March 2017, she directed the first Italian permanent show “Giudizio Universale – Michelangelo and the secrets of the Sistine Chapel”, a multimedia immersive theatre show inspired by Michelangelo’s masterpieces. Between 2018 and 2019 she was appointed as Artistic Director for two editions of the Italian XFactor, with her partner Simone Ferrari, the most seen ever edition, bringing unconventional contents into Italian TV. In 2020, when the pandemic hit, she was directing the new permanent show in Berlin for Cirque du Soleil, a contemporary tale brought into the new circus language, that is at the moment on hold. She is now working on an original production of contemporary circus and physical poetry inspired by Alice in Wonderland which will premiere December the 16th.