[siccer]
Will Rawls
LOS ANGELES PREMIERE
- Price
- $27*
- Genres
- Dance, Film/Video
- Season
- Winter/Spring 2025
- DATE
- APR 10-12
- TIME
- THU-SAT, 8:30 PM
- RUNTIME
- Approx. 90 minutes
- COUNTRY
- USA
* Discounts available for REDCAT members, students & the CalArts faculty and staff
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About
In [siccer], Will Rawls considers the ways in which Black bodies are relentlessly documented, distorted, and circulated in the media. This dance performance, presented together with the artist’s exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), experiments with stop-motion, a filmmaking technique in which still photographs are strung together to produce a moving image. Throughout [siccer]’s live performance, Holland Andrews, keyon gaskin, jess pretty, Katrina Reid, and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste are suspended in an uncanny reenactment of an iconic American film. When the camera’s shutter closes momentarily between photographs, Rawls and collaborators play within the intervals, taking advantage of a gap in surveillance. The project’s title is driven by the usage of “[sic],” a Latin adverb which indicates incorrect spelling within a quotation, often employed to contrast Black vernacular with standard English.
Will Rawls excavates edges and bolsters breakdowns.
—
Ethan Philbrick, BOMB
[siccer] is presented by REDCAT and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) in conjunction with the exhibition Will Rawls: [siccer] on view at ICA LA from April 5 – August 24, 2025.
[siccer] was originally commissioned by The Kitchen in partnership with co-commissioners The Momentary, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, On the Boards, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. [siccer] was made possible, in part, by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is a Creative Capital Project. [siccer] is also a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project which is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). [siccer] also received substantial developmental support from THINKLARGE.US, a family run nonprofit created by Don Quinn Kelley and Sandra L. Burton to aid in the creation of new work.
[siccer] was developed and supported, in part, by residencies at The Momentary and Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts, with additional support by On the Boards and The Kitchen; a creative residency at Petronio Residency Center, a program of the Stephen Petronio Company; with financial, administrative, and residency support from Dance in Process at Gibney with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Movement Research; the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at the University of California Los Angeles and The Hammer Museum Residency; the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University; with production support and residency provided by EMPAC / Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Williams College and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; UCLA Center for the Study of Women Streisand Center.
about the artist
Will Rawls is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses choreography, video, sculpture, works on paper, and installation. His work probes the boundaries between dance, language, and other media to investigate the poetics of abstraction, blackness, and the materiality of time. Living and working in New York City and Los Angeles, his work has been presented at the MCA Chicago; The Momentary, Bentonville, Arkansas; On the Boards, Seattle; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Oregon; the 35a Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil; and Counterpublic 2023, St. Louis, Missouri; among others. Rawls has been awarded numerous residencies and fellowships, including a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship, and he received the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts in 2021. His writing has been published by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museu de Arte de São Paulo; and the journal Dancing While Black. He is currently Associate Professor of Choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at the University of California, Los Angeles.
cast & creative team
Concept, Choreography, and Direction: Will Rawls
Performance: Holland Andrews, keyon gaskin, jess pretty, Katrina Reid, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste
Sound Design and Vocals: Holland Andrews and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste
Director of Photography, Video Editor, and FX: Lauryn Siegel
Technical Director: David Szlasa
Lighting and Scenic Designer: Maggie Heath
Costume Designer: Saša Kovačević, Dana Doughty
Audio Designer: Jimmy Garver
Dramaturg: Kemi Adeyemi
Studio Rawls Director: Rebecca Fitton
Producer: Sasha Okshteyn
