Susanne Kennedy (Friedrichshafen, 1977) studied Directing at the Amsterdam School of the Arts and quickly established herself as an innovative director, working with companies such as Het Nationale Toneel and Toneelgroep Amsterdam (now ITA). Her theatrical, visual and physical stagings often involves adaptations of works by Ibsen, Strindberg and Jelinek. Kennedy’s work was selected for the Dutch Theatre Festival, and in 2014 she received the Kennedy’s Critics’ Prize. That same year, she moved to Germany, where she worked on commissions for institutions including the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Ruhrtriennale. Her work was selected multiple times by the Berliner Festspiele, and for her direction of Fegefeuer in Ingolstadt she was awarded the 3SAT Prize for Best Emerging Director. Since 2016, Kennedy has been part of the artistic team at the Volksbühne, where she directed Women in Trouble (2017) and The Coming Society (2018), among others.
She lives in Berlin with visual artist Markus Selg (Singen, 1974). Selg creates sculptures, collages, installations and films. Central to his work are the relationships between technology and spirituality, and between soul, mind and matter. He has been collaborating with Kennedy since 2014. Selg and Kennedy are known for their radical artistic choices and for integrating live theatre with digital technologies. Their work is layered in meaning and engages with grand narratives and existential themes. Together, they explore artistic visions of the future human being, and with that, the cultural and philosophical questions such visions evoke—guided by new perspectives on humanism.
In recent years, they have been regularly invited by international festivals to present their work or create new productions. In order to work independently, Selg and Kennedy founded their own organisation in 2021: Ultraworld Productions GbR. Through this, they aim to develop innovative and contemporary performance art with artistic autonomy and flexibility.
Projects supported by Ammodo
Angela (A Strange Loop) (2023)