Photo by Bill Cameron
DANCE ARTIST - CHOREOGRAPHY. PERFORMANCE. EDUCATION.
Jesse Schmitz-Boyd is a Twin Cities-based choreographer, dance artist, and educator known for his innovative approach to movement and performance. He is the founder and artistic director of Rogue & Rabble Dance and has been a company member of Alternative Motion Project (AMP) for over a decade. A dynamic collaborator, Jesse regularly works with Off-Leash Area, performing at venues like the Cowles Center and participating in the Neighborhood Garage Tour across Minnesota. His recent project, Dredged and Dammed: A Confluence, created with Elizabeth Flinsch, is an experimental dance exploring the history of the Mississippi River.
Jesse's choreography is characterized by its unique blend of humor, emotional depth, and exploration of human connection. His movement language fuses flowing, off-kilter gesture with an emphasis on disruption and play, drawing from fall-and-recover techniques while embracing complexities and contradictions. His work often reflects a self-aware meditation on the futility of fully capturing these complexities, inviting audiences to engage with both the absurd and the profound.
In addition to his own compositions, Jesse has performed in works by a diverse group of accomplished choreographers, including Michael Estanich, Jennifer Glaws, Heather Klopchin, Brianna Rae Johnson, Erinn Liebhard, Brenna Mosser, Kristin Howe, and Joanna Lees.
Jesse’s choreography has been showcased at venues such as the Red Eye Theater, The Southern Theater, DanceBarn Festival (Battle Lake, MN), The Lab Theater, Minnesota Fringe Festival, The Ritz Theater, and Movement Arts Day (Eau Claire, WI). His piece 35 Different Angles From Which to Hate Yourself was named one of the Star Tribune’s “10 Must Sees” at the 2017 Minnesota Fringe Festival, with the paper praising it as "pretty darn funny". In 2022, his work TRAITOR received a Golden Lanyard Award at the Minnesota Fringe Festival.
With a degree in Dance and Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, Jesse’s interdisciplinary background informs both his creative process and his perspective on movement. He has taught dance, movement, and performance to students of all ages across Minnesota and Wisconsin since 2003 and currently serves on the faculty at The Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis.
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