Johanna Ackva’s practice unfolds mainly in the fields of performance and contemporary dance as well in spaces of interdisciplinary artistic research. Informed by her studies of anthropology and choreography, she uses body- and movement-based practices, as well as conversations with experts, strangers and friends as main sources and material to explore phenomena of individual experience as embedded in shared social, material, and affective environments.
Her work can manifest in performances, texts, objects and installations. At its core, there lies a curiosity about encountering the Other – be it a person, a space, or a belief – and about how Self and world are continually made and remade in those encounters.
Johanna’s often collaborative projects have touched on themes such as work and its value (The Agreement, AG Arbeit, They Ate Our Day), mysticism and experiences of nature (Salt Lake, Tongues Entangled, High Fidelity), constructions of femininity (Women and Watery Men, EARTHBOUND SQUATTERS), as well as death, mourning and our relationship to the dead (Untitled Solo, CLOUDS ON CLEAR SKY, aus dem, was sprachfähig war).
Johanna has been teaching (e.g. as a guest teacher at the interdisciplinary Stuidum Generale of Universität der Künste Berlin) and mentoring different artistic residency programs (e.g. into the fields, Denk- und Produktionsort Libken). For her, arts and the facilitation of artistic practice and discourse are a language of communication with diverse people and contexts. Together with Anna Zett and Marie DuPasquier, Johanna has hosted different trans-disciplinary events and projects. Since 2019, she is an organizer and curator at Denk- und Produktionsort Libken (Uckermark), since 2021, she is part of Libken’s core team.
Next to pursuing her own artistic work, Johanna likes to collaborate. She has performed for artists, choreographers, and composers such as: Evelyn Saylor, Dina Maccabee, Tim Winter, Moritz Majce, Monster Truck, Nicole Wendel, Lea Martini & Dennis Deter, Grażyna Roguski, Emma Tricard, Madalina Dan, and Roni Katz. Next to her professional activities, Johanna works as a volunteer in end- of-life-care at Lazarushospiz Berlin.
Johanna Ackva works as an artist mainly in the fields of choreography and performance. Next to a range of dance and movement based practices, her work draws importantly from anthropological writings and methods. Thus, observation of everyday life, wanderings and conversations – with experts, strangers or friends – make up an essential part of it. At its core, Johanna’s interest lies in the material, sensory and affective, the intimate as well as the political dimensions of the relationship between Self and world. She is invested in exploring and (re)negotiating entanglements, and searches for ways of translating this artistic process into performative settings that invite for shared experience.
Since 2014, Johanna’s often collaboratively developed projects have touched upon themes such as work and its value ([dry] [title], Hamburger Bahnhof, 2016 / AG Arbeit, Libken 2021 / They Ate Our Day, Tanzhalle Wiesenburg, 2025), experiences of nature (Salt Lake, ada Studio, 2018 / Zweitlandschaften, 2025), constructions of femininity (Women and watery men, Display & Flutgraben Berlin, 2016), female mystics and mysticism (Tongues Entangled, Lake Studios, 2021 / Human Polygraph, Display, 2022), or death and finitude (Out of Our Hands, Tanzfabrik Berlin, 2019 / Solo ohne Titel, Uferstudios, 2020 / CLOUDS ON CLEAR SKY, Vierte Welt, 2021 / Grandmothers, Ballhaus Ost, 2021). Next to performances in theatres and other spaces, Johanna’s work also manifests in objects, installations and text, such as most recently the brochure ‘aus dem, was sprachfähig war’ or the three-channel-video installation ‘bluefold’. In 2024/25, Johanna receives the Tanzpraxis Scholarship of the Cultural Senate of Berlin.
Part of Johanna’s practice are writing and teaching In 2019/20, she wrote as an in-house dance critic for ada Studio, Currently, she writes for the online platform tanzschreibr.de. As a guest teacher at Universität der Künste Berlin, she has facilitated seminars and workshops in the frame of the interdisciplinary Studium Generale. Johanna enjoys collaboration and has performed for artists, choreographers, and composers such as: Evelyn Saylor, Dina Maccabee, Tim Winter, Moritz Majce, Monster Truck, Nicole Wendel, Lea Martini & Dennis Deter, Grażyna Roguski, Emma Tricard, Madalina Dan, and Roni Katz. Since 2019, she contributes to the programming of Denk- und Produktionsort Libken. Since 2021, she is part of Libken’s core team. In a residential building in the small town Böckenberg / Uckermark, built to house workers of a GDR-run agricultural cooperative, Libken offers space for a wide range of artistic, scientific and activist residencies, projects and events. Next to her professional activities, Johanna works as a volunteer in end- of-life-care at Lazarushospiz Berlin.