Birte Opitz
1989*, Berlin / Munich, Germany
Birte Opitz studied performance & theater education, dance, and dance studies in Braunschweig, Berlin and Stockholm and works as a freelance performer, dance educator and trained feminist self-assertion and self-defense trainer. In her artistic work and teaching, she combines somatic dance and voice work with methods of self-assertion and works primarily with formats that combine performance, workshops and rituals. In 2022/23, she received the Berlin Senate’s Tanzpraxis scholarship as an emerging artist.
In 2023 she presented her first funded, full-length production Raging Affirmations about the empowering potential of rage in Berlin, which was restaged at HochX Munich in 2025. In 2024, she presented her second solo Abendempfindung on dying as part of Ming Poons installation Stardust. She performed for various artists, e.g. Olivia Hyunsin Kim, Okwui Okpokwasili or Peaches and is most frequently collaborating with choreographer Zwoisy Mears-Clarke. Since 2022, she has been developing a training concept for Zwoisy that enables performers to protect themselves against sexualized violence.
She regularly teaches her artistic practice Embodied Self-Assertion for various institutions, e.g., Theater Basel, UdK Berlin, Tanzquelle Munich, and many more. Since 2020, she has been producing Not your Opfer, a podcast about sexualized violence. She cares for her mother with dementia, has become chronically sick as a result of the care and is a queer dog mom.