Felix Ruckert

Felix Ruckert is a Berlin dancer and choreographer who became one of the organizers of the city’s rope scene. A portrait published by the Berlin dance venue DOCK 11 says he trained in dance between 1982 and 1992 in Berlin, at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, and in Paris and New York, and danced with Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal from 1992 to 1994, taking part in the creation of two of her pieces. He then worked as an independent choreographer. His participatory solo series Hautnah, created at DOCK 11 in 1995, was shown 243 times, and in 2004 he conceived the first xplore festival there.

schwelle7

In March 2007 he opened schwelle7, a Berlin venue of his own given over to participatory art and experimental work with the body. According to the DOCK 11 portrait, he programmed, made work, taught and performed there until May 2016. The DOCK 11 portrait lists SM-play workshops, BDSM theory events and a Bondage Jam among its formats, and says the venue hosted visiting kinbaku teachers including Osada Steve, Arisue Go and Naka Akira. A 2014 profile in The Berliner described schwelle7 as a playground for controlled experiment, with workshops in dance and sexual technique. The portrait credits him with helping to popularize shibari in Europe and calls him a pioneer of Berlin’s sex-positive and conscious kink movement.

EURIX and IKSK

In 2012 he launched EURIX, the European Rigger & Model Exchange, which DOCK 11 describes as a project to develop kinbaku as an art form. In his own concept text, EURIX meets in Berlin for one week in spring and one in autumn, when experienced riggers and models from across Europe come together to exchange and research; its stated aim is to support rope artists developing their own approaches and to push the practice forward on a technical, artistic and philosophical level. Each edition combines master classes, workshops, public jams and performance evenings, and the program brings Japanese shibari together with European influences from art, science, bodywork and BDSM culture. The event page lists editions planned into 2028.

In October 2020 he opened IKSK, the Institut für Körperforschung und sexuelle Kultur, at Holzmarkt 25 in Berlin. The institute’s drop-in bondage program, run by him with guest teachers, runs from an absolute beginners class to suspension practice. He describes the Bondage Basics course for advanced beginners in the first person, as a cycle of steps that he teaches with an emphasis on precise, fluid execution, and the program also lists a suspension training class under his name. The class descriptions name rope handling, session design and somatic tools among the topics.