Anya Ananda Schwarz shares with us the story behind House of Soul Strip and her conscious approach to stripping.

There is a moment just before the music begins when everything becomes quiet. Not externally - the room is alive, anticipation is building - but internally, there is a still point. A breath. A choice. Am I here to perform, or to reveal? This question became a doorway for me; into a world where stripping is no longer an act of seduction for the gaze of others, but a ritual of returning to myself.

Mysterious threads

My path into this work was anything but linear. I was born into a spiritual family with German and Lebanese roots, so spirituality was always present, yet it took me years of inner conflict to truly embrace it. Growing up, I felt a subtle but constant pressure to perform, which slowly led me away from my natural expression. It was only through deep personal work and creative exploration that this inner tension revealed itself as a source of power.

Looking back, I can see that the thread had already appeared years earlier in an almost mysterious way. During my studies in theater, media, and economics, I attended a seminar on sex and gender in theater and pop culture and randomly drew “striptease” as my research topic. What initially felt like coincidence became one of the most fascinating explorations of my studies. I visited a strip club, not just looking for spectacle, but searching for the artistry of the dancers. This led me to trace the roots of erotic dance back to ancient ritual traditions in the Orient and India. At the time, it remained an academic inquiry - something I completed and then set aside.

The strip club as a school

Years later, when I met the women of ANIMAGIKA, this experience returned with new meaning. What once felt random revealed itself as part of a deeper pull. Together, we embarked on a mission to reclaim our embodied femininity, using the strip club as a field of exploration. Soon after, we began traveling, weaving our experiences with nature, music, poetry, and dance, eventually founding our ritual performance collective. What we created was not simply performance, but rituals for making visible what our bodies remembered about femininity. We shared this on stages across Berlin, Mexico, Paris, and international festivals, creating a coherent field of embodied truth. For us, it was liberation. For audiences, it felt like magic. And for the system, it could be held as art.

And yet, the search kept going. The freedom we were cultivating through ritual and performance did not fully reach the layers where shame, desire, power, and conditioning live. I realized that true liberation does not exist only in the light - it requires a willingness to step into the shadow.

The strip club stayed in my life, but in a different way. It became my school - an initiatory field where I learned to inhabit my body on stage and in contact with men over several years. It is a space full of contradictions: projection and objectification, economic exchange and raw human relating, desire intertwined with power. I was drawn to it by a deeper question: how far into freedom can I go through my own depth, and what will I meet on the way?

What I found was a landscape of shadows guarding the pathways to my instinctive, primordial nature - the part of me I recognized as my essence, my soul. In this space, I explored my relationship to the masculine, to visibility, to money, and to my own body. My quest was to find my healthy power and to liberate my soul.

Stripping down to my soul

In that environment, the questions became embodied.

What does it mean to be seen?

Where does my power begin, and where do I give it away?

What happens when my body stops performing and begins to reveal something real?

What I encountered was a deeper connection with myself - and through that, with those who witnessed me. I brought to the stage whatever was alive in me. When a client touched my heart, I danced it. When something triggered my shadow, I danced it. When I had a bad day, I brought that too. And with each dance, something moved. My energy shifted. My body opened.

In private dances with clients who met me with presence and devotion, a different field emerged. It was no longer about performance, but about shared experience. A field of eros that felt spiritual, connective, alive. This is where I began to understand the potential of stripping down to my soul.

This is where soul stripping emerged for me.

Soul stripping is not a technique or an aesthetic. It is a shift in intention. It takes the act of removing layers - so familiar within modern sex work - and transforms it into a process of shedding conditioning, expectation, and protection until something true can be felt. In this space, my body is no longer used to impress, but to express. Each movement carries something lived. Not all of it is polished. Some truths tremble, resist or feel incomplete - but this is where the soul begins to surface.

House of Soulstrip

House of Soulstrip was born to hold this process. It is a space where people of all genders are invited to step onto the stage not as performers in the conventional sense, but as participants in a ritual of visibility. Stripping here is not about becoming desirable, but about becoming honest. And in that honesty, something begins to shift. When I allow myself to be seen in truth rather than perfection, my body learns something new: that it is safe, that it is respected, and that it is worthy of being honored as it is.

Eros plays a central role in this work, but not in the way it is commonly understood. For me, eros is a field of energy, attention, and feeling. It is not limited to sexuality. It is the life force that moves through creation - the energy behind art, desire, connection, and transformation. When it is suppressed, it distorts. When it is expressed unconsciously, it can cause harm. But when it is met with awareness, it becomes medicine.

House of Soulstrip exists in this meeting point between instinct and presence, between body and consciousness.

The audience is an essential part of this. This is not a space of consumption, but of witnessing. Guests are not there to take or evaluate, but to meet what is being expressed and what it awakens within themselves. Even the exchange of money shifts in meaning. Stripper Dollars move from transaction into a conscious gesture of energy and appreciation, opening a different relationship to value.

Through this, something begins to change. Shame softens, not because it disappears, but because it is allowed to be seen. The stage becomes a threshold where I meet parts of myself I once hid, and for those witnessing, it becomes a mirror. A remembering. A quiet recognition of their own unlived expression.

This is why I don’t answer the question “Can stripping be soulful?” with a simple yes or no. Stripping reflects the intention behind it. It can exist as performance, as transaction, as entertainment. But it can also become something else.

When the intention shifts from performing to revealing, from control to truth; the act transforms. It becomes a ritual of reclamation. A return to myself.

At its core, House of Soulstrip is about giving the embodied soul permission to be visible. It is about teaching the body that it is loved, respected, and honored not for how it looks, but for what it carries. It is about creating a space where visibility is rooted in truth rather than validation, and where expression becomes connection.

So, can stripping be soulful?

Not by default. But it can become soulful when it is an act of truth. When the body is no longer an object, but a vessel. When eros and soul are no longer separate, but lived as one.

And in that space, the question begins to change.

It is no longer: Can stripping be soulful?

But: What is ready to be seen through me?

About Anya Ananda Schwarz

Anya Ananda Schwarz is a multidisciplinary ritual performer, poetic channel and founder of House of Soulstrip, a contemporary mystery school dedicated to embodied transformation through eros, movement, and intuitive ritual arts.

Her performances weave somatic intelligence, mythic storytelling, and emotional alchemy, inviting audiences into a living field where personal and collective transformation unfold simultaneously. Anya’s work dissolves the boundaries between art, spirituality, and embodied research. Her approach engages the performer as both vessel and catalyst, using ritual performance as a medium for self-transmutation and shared awakening.

Hereby, the role of the performer applies to every human being who dares to be real with an audience. In other containers, Anya transfers tantric dynamics into erotic dance, supporting true connection among humans based on the play with gender and polarity. Where women embody masculinity and men femininity with the intention to get inspired by the other sex through their innate polarity.

Stay up to date with ANIMAGIKA and House of Soul Strip.

Upcoming Events

House of Soulstrip: Blooming Berlin - Guest Experience
Saturday, May 16th / 18:00 - 02:00 / Tickets: €35 - €55
📍Private Rooftop Penthouse in Berlin Mitte

House of Soulstrip: Blooming Berlin - Performer Experience
Friday, May 15th / 15:00 - 19:00
Saturday, May 16th / 18:00 - 02:00 / Tickets: €111 - €129
📍Private Rooftop Penthouse in Berlin Mitte

Can Stripping be Soulful?