Jesse Schmitz-Boyd is a Twin Cities–based choreographer, performer, teaching artist, and the founder of Rogue & Rabble Dance.

His work blends contemporary dance and physical theater to create emotionally resonant worlds that are at once playful, affronting, and bittersweet.

As a longtime company member and collaborator with Alternative Motion Project and Off-Leash Area, Jesse has performed throughout Minnesota at venues including the Cowles Center, Red Eye Theater, Southern Theater, The Lab Theater, and in Off-Leash Area’s acclaimed Neighborhood Garage Tour. He has also collaborated with a wide range of choreographers and theater artists across the Twin Cities dance community.

Jesse’s choreographic work often explores contradiction, ritual, connection and absurdity through an off-kilter movement language rooted in gesture, monument, fall-and-recover techniques, and audience relationship. His work balances earnestness with wit, inviting audiences into experiences that are both emotionally grounded and humorously self-aware.

His choreography has been presented at the Minnesota Fringe Festival, DanceBarn Festival, Movement Arts Day, The Ritz Theater, and other regional performance venues. His 2017 work 35 Different Angles From Which to Hate Yourselfwas named one of the Star Tribune’s “10 Must Sees” at the Minnesota Fringe Festival, while his 2022 production TRAITOR received a Golden Lanyard Award. Recent collaborations include Dredged and Dammed: A Confluence, an experimental dance work created with Elizabeth Flinsch examines the environmental and cultural history of the Mississippi River.

Jesse holds a degree in Dance and Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point and has taught movement and performance for students of all ages throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin for more than two decades. He currently serves as a teaching artist with Children’s Theatre Company and Ashley Ballet Arts Academy.