Will Rawls: [siccer], multiple venues

Will Rawls interviewed by Ethan Philbrick, September 26, 2023

In the dance performance and video installation [siccer], Will Rawls experiments with stop motion filmmaking techniques to consider how black gestures are relentlessly documented, distorted, and circulated in lens-based media.

The project’s title is driven by the Latin adverb “[sic],” which indicates incorrect spelling within a quotation and which is often employed to contrast black vernacular speech with standard English. Rawls turns this conflict on its head in order to illuminate the verbal and physical play of black performance as something that eludes capture on screen and in language—and that speculates on the potential of strategies for narrating the world, uncorrected.

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
⁠Assistant Costume Designer: Dana Doughty
Audio Designer: Jimmy Garver
Dramaturg: Kemi Adeyemi
Studio Rawls Director: Rebecca Fitton
Producer: Sasha Okshteyn
Company Manager: Alejandro Flores Monge

[siccer] was co-comissioned by The Momentary, Bentonville, AR; MCA Chicago, Chicago, IL; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR; On the Boards, Seattle, WA; and The Kitchen, New York, NY.

Performance stills from [siccer], performed at The Momentary, Bentonville, AR, 2023.




Installation views of  [siccer] at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, 2023.