the work / the company / biography
Notes about the work...
Throughout his work Felix Ruckert questions the perception of living performance, sometimes allowing the spectator to play an active role in the performance and confronting him/her with intense emotional feelings. This questioning inspired radical, experimental and controversial propositions that range from interactive experiences with the audience, to installations or to pieces of pure choreographic research. Felix Ruckert plays with the usual rules of a dance performance. He likes to address the audience members as individuals and to put them, most of the time, in other settings than frontal and sitting. He often borrows, transforms, transposes and brings the codes of other well-known human and social activities into performing spaces: the brothel in Hautnah (1995), the group ritual in Ring (1999), the slide show in Schwartz (1998), the visit in a gallery in Stillen (2000), the night-club in deluxe joy pilot (2000), the underground itineraries of sexuality in SECRET SERVICE (2002) the party in the Love Zoo (2004), the medical treatment in Placebo Behandlung (2005) and children‘s Role Playing in UNited Kingdom ( 2006). Strong concepts, well thought rules-of-the-game and elegant esthetics give a strong frame to the Felix Ruckert's shows, that allow an active artistic and emotional input from the performers, the musicians (music is mostly performed live) as well as a safe cocoon for the spectators reactions.
For his Projects Felix Ruckert developed a system of improvisation and composition tools that give a straightforward and pragmatic entrance to his exploration of perception. Projects like Gender Observation (2002) and Tools (and Tricks for Survival in Outer Space) (2003) commissioned by the Ballet de l'Opera National du Rhin, MushRoom (2003), Venus in Hanoi or The Art of Getting Lost (2004) for the National Opera Ballet of Vietnam and tokyo-tools: multiple choices and glorious routine (2005) for Star Dancers Ballet Tokyo confirm and validate this direction of research also for the use in conventional Settings. Felix Ruckert uses choreographic constellations and a deep understanding of movement to question in depth physical and emotional states. His genuine curiosity is constantly at work towards an extremely refined and original personal style.
Since 2004, in collaboration with Caprice Dilba, he curates the annual workshop and performance event xplore, which researches and presents performative and ritual forms of sexuality. www.xplore-berlin.de
the company...
Compagnie Felix Ruckert functions as an international pick up company, around a solid knot of dancers, performers, musicians and artists, among them Caroline Allaire, Matthieu Burner, Vidal Bini, Louise Chardon, Robert Clark, Laura Frigato, Ulrike Haage , Catherine Jodoin, Christian Meyer Mal , Tomi Paasonen, Marika Rizzi, Jürgen und Daniela Wedhorn, Caroline Picard, Delta RA'i , Elettra de Salvo, Dasniya Sommer, Liz Young and many others.
Since 1994 the work has been presented and co-produced by many international presenters. The company has its home base in Berlin, at SCHWELLE SIEBEN, where especially the participatory projects are produced and presented. It also is collaborates closely witH DOCK11Studios.
Since 2007 Compagnie Felix Ruckert does not receive fundings from the city of Berlin anymore, but benefits from help of the NPN (National Performance Net) for its national, and from Goethe Institute for its international tours.
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