Felix Ruckert is a dancer, choreographer, conceptual artist and curator. He creates events, performs, gives lectures and teaches workshops, often fusing his knowledge from dance with an unique approach to practices of BDSM and conscious sexuality. He also enjoys making music.
He started as a dancer working with several renowned companies (Mathilde Monnier, Pina Bausch’s Wuppertaler Tanztheater) before concentrating on choreography, conceptual work and choreographic installations. Between 1993 and 2008 he created more than 30 evening length performances for his Berlin based company; some of those toured worldwide. He strongly influenced the performing arts by expanding the stage to the physical body of the audience and giving it an active role in his performances. His experimental dance pieces, his participatory work and his choreographies for ballet companies earned him an international reputation as one of the most versatile and innovative contemporary choreographers.
Felix main interests are the endless possibilities of the human body. He studied Ballet, Modern and Contemporary dance, Improvisation, Feldenkrais, Pilates, Continuum Movement, Yoga, Chi Kung, Kyudo, Tao Yoga, Massage techniques, Tantra, Kinbaku, Choir and Solo Singing and much more. In the last twenty years he became well known for his practical and theoretical investigation of BDSM and the exploration of connections between BDSM techniques and artistic practices, developing an art of touch and a philosophy of sensual communication.
From 2007 to 2016 he directed the art venue schwelle7 in Berlin as a fusion of a kinky club, a dance studio and a private living room: a permanent performance on the threshold between the private and the public. schwelle7 also produced many performances and workshops with Japanese masters and therefore played a major role in the popularization of Kinbaku – Japanese Rope Bondage- in Europe.
Since 2004 Felix directs the annual festival xplore in Berlin and curates its international branches, with 31 editions in seven countries so far. Since 2012 he also directs EURIX – The European Rigger&Model Exchange, a bi-annual festival in Berlin dedicated to the development of Rope Bondage as an art form.
In October 2020 Felix opened a new venue in Berlin at Holzmarkt, the IKSK – Institut für Körperforschung und sexuelle Kultur (Institute for Body Research and Sexual Culture). IKSK was closed for Corona and just reopened again, June, 2021.
MOVE / DANCE & THEATER
RING – a participatory choreography by Felix Ruckert (1999/ 2023)
RING is a choreographic reflection on contact and closeness, seduction and desire, simulation and authenticity, on the unpredictability, but also the mechanics of emotions. The piece is an intense and touching journey for both the dancers and the audience. Through affection and generously allocated attention from the constantly changing interaction partners, an attempt is made to create feelings of belonging, being accepted and being perceived in the audience. The moments experienced as “intimate” or “personal” are at the same time elements of a strictly defined, inexorably progressing choreographic structure. The pairing of the performers with audience members takes place at random. Thus, the piece simultaneously refers to the relativity and reproducibility of felt connection, as well as to the unexpected emotional intensity that can arise despite standardized interactions and random encounters.
The performance is accompanied live by two musicians (Christian Meyer and Oliver Doerell) who work with minimalist, mainly electronic means. The resulting, often repetitive musical structures overlap with the action loops of the dancers to form a polyrhythmic whole.
The famous and successful production RING, created in 1999, explores the relationship between spectators and performers, a central concern of Felix Ruckert. It was performed in over 30 cities worldwide between 1999 and 2007 and will be restaged in Berlin for several performances this year, amongst others at the xplore festival.
Choreography: Felix Ruckert
Music: Christian Meyer, Oliver Doerell
Performer: Cecile Buttaud, Juliette Dragon, Lennart Anton Hahn, Ludwig Hagmeier, Yu-Yuan Huang, Vesna Ivkovic, Catherine Jodoin, Ekaterina Kaliuzhnaia, Angela Lamprianidou, Cintia Rangel Martins, Sho Nakasatomi, Darren C. Perkins, delta RA’i, Asuka Julia Riedl, Cary Shiu, Selina Thüring, Indira Töreki, Cathy Walsh, William Woolf, Ana Laura Zampaglione, Tea Zugec
The revival of RING will take place as part of the Berlin 2023 Cultural Summer Festival.
www.kultursommerfestival.berlin
SILENT SPACE
Felix Ruckert is the artistic director of the xplore Silent Space.
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