Foto: Merthe Wulff

My name is Jäckie Rydz (they/them) and I am a performance artist.

I create interdisciplinary performances that merge movement, poetic text, and immersive environments to generate collective situations. These works echo the charged atmospheres of stadiums or churches but reimagine them as spaces where new modes of being together can be tested. By placing queer bodies at the center of collective experience, I argue that performance can both expose inherited violence and rehearse new ways of being together- the audience cannot remain passive. I stage transformation in real time, insisting that the audience not just watch but take part in imagining a future.

My first production, BABYLON, premiered in April 2023 at Nowy Teatr Warsaw and was shown at Theater der Welt 2023 (supporting program), the Le Lampenfieber Festival Berlin, and the HundertPro! Festival 6.1. at Ringlokschuppen Ruhr. In June 2025, my first solo work, OLYMPIA, premiered at Sportfest at Ballhaus Ost Berlin, a physical exploration of the systematic oppression of queer bodies in bureaucracy and history.

I completed my B.A. in Stage Design (Berlin University of the Arts) and my M.A. in Applied Theater Studies (Giessen). During my studies in Giessen, I began a continuous, body-based practice, which I have been developing further since last year with choreographer Pamela Moraga. Together, we develop ritualized movement sequences that make the body visible as a medium and continue in the stage space and text.

As a freelance stage designer I worked at Mousonturm Frankfurt, in Luxemburg and Berlin. In 2022, I was a fellow of the EU-wide ChangeNow! program, the Academy of the International Theater Institute in 2023, and a mentee in the LAFT Berlin entry program in 2024.

Alongside my artistic practice, I am nurtured by activist work with SCHLAU Hessen (educating teenagers about queerness in rural Germany) and Ciocia Basia (translating for Polish people seeking abortions in Berlin). These experiences inform my belief that queerness as an artistic practice can be versatile and that performance is a site for international community building.