Will Rawls

Will Rawls is a multidisciplinary choreographer whose practice encompasses dance, video, sculpture, works on paper and installation. Rawls' choreography explores language and gesture to stage performances of black presence and becoming. Rawls has presented solo exhibitions at 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023), Art Basel (2023), Adams + Ollman (2022) and a multi-part installation, Everlasting Stranger, at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle (2021). He has also presented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, Performa 15, Danspace Project, The Chocolate Factory Theater, High Line Art, Walker Art Center, REDCAT, the 10th Berlin Biennale, and the Hessel Museum at Bard College. He has received fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Alpert Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Mellon Foundation, United States Artists, the Rauschenberg Foundation, Creative Capital, New England Foundation for the Arts, National Performance Network, MAP Fund, the MacDowell Colony, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Movement Research. Rawls is Associate Professor of Choreography in UCLA’s Department of World Arts and cultures/Dance. In 2016, Rawls co-curated Lost and Found—six weeks of performances at Danspace Project that addressed the intergenerational impact of HIV/AIDS. His writing has been published by the Hammer Museum, MoMA, Museu de Arte de São Paolo, Dancing While Black Journal, Brooklyn Rail and Artforum.

Holland Andrews (they/them) is a vocalist, composer, and performance artist whose work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build cathartic and dissonant soundscapes. Andrews arranges music for voice, clarinet, and electronics and frequently highlights themes surrounding vulnerability and healing. Andrews harnesses these instruments’ innate qualities of power and elegance to serve as a cohesive vessel for these themes. As a vocalist, their influences stem from a dynamic range including contemporary opera, theater, and jazz, while also cultivating their own unique vocal style which integrates these influences with language disintegration and vocal distortion. Andrews previously performed solo music under the stage name Like a Villain. In addition to creating solo work, Andrews composes and performs for dance, theater, and film, and their work is toured nationally and internationally with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Dorothee Munyaneza, Will Rawls, Sonya Tayeh, Jenn Freeman, and poet Demian Dinéyazhi. Notable musical collaborations include Son Lux, Christina Vantzou, William Brittelle, Methods Body, West Thordson, Peter Broderick, Darian Donovan Thomas, and Nils Frahm. Their previous work also includes composing film scores for Rebeca Huntt’s BEBA (nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and acquired by Neon and Onyx Collective/Hulu) and Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn’s Another Body (awarded SXSW 2023 Documentary Feature Special Jury Award for Innovation in Storytelling). Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The Wire, The New York Times, Vogue, Le Monde, and BBC Radio. Holland Andrews is currently based in Brooklyn, New York.

keyon gaskin prefers not to contextualize with their credentials.

jess pretty received an MFA in Dance with a minor in Queer Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. she has shown her work at La Mama Experimental Theater Club (2017 La Mama Moves Festival), New York Live Arts (as a 2016/17 Fresh Tracks artist), CATCH!, Gibney Dance Center, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, the CURRENT SESSIONS, panoply performing arts space, Green Street Studios, three ACDA conferences, and the Chocolate Factory Theatre. pretty has been an artist in residence at Kent State (2017), the Chocolate Factory Theatre, and the Center for Performance Research (2019-2020) and was also a 2020 member of the Queer Art Fellowship. pretty has collaborated and been a part of the works of: Will Rawls, Claudia Rankine, Kevin Beasley, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peter Born, Catherine Gallasso, David Thomson, Katie Workum, Niall Jones, Jennifer Monson, Cynthia Oliver, Leslie Cuyjet and Dianne McIntyre. pretty recently took over as Director of AUNTS; a punk/DIY performance series that hosts events/festivals/shows to highlight the works of experimental dance makers in NYC. pretty recently relocated to Minneapolis, MN where she is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. 

Katrina Reid  (she/her) is a dancer and choreographer that crafts art projects rooted in improvisation, experimentation, and storytelling. Select presentations of her work include the Queens Museum, ISSUE Project Room, the Knockdown Center, Current Sessions, DoublePlus/Gibney Dance, AUNTS, the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Florida A&M University, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX). As a collaborator Katrina explores performance across dance, theater, music, ritual and film. Most recent projects include [siccer] by Will Rawls, VESSEL by David Thomson, as well as past works by Jonathan González, Third Rail Projects, Kevin Beasley, Emily Johnson, Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, Marguerite Hemmings, and Megan Byrne, among others.

Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste (b. 1984, Baton Rouge, LA), MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College. Select exhibitions include: “I Would Prefer Not To (Stay Cool),” Human Resources Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA (2022), "Set It Off," ICA @ Virginia Commonwealth University and 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA (2021), "Devo (Listenin' Out The Top Of Ya Head)," Berlin Atonal, Berlin, DE (2021), “Pendulum Music: An Arrangement for Four Performers and Geodisic Dome,” MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2018); “Club,” Performance Space New York, New York, NY (2018); “Evil Nigger: A Five Part Performance for Julius Eastman,” The Kitchen, Brooklyn, NY (2018); “Study Of ‘Study Of Three Heads’,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2018); “Evil Nigger Part IV and Evil Nigger Part V,” Issue Project Room, Brooklyn, NY (2017); “Who Needs To Think When Your Feet Just Go+ Never Not Doing,” The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2016). Select awards and residencies include: Camargo Foundation Core Program Fellow (2022), Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Sound Artist-In-Residence (2021), Bessie Award for Outstanding Music Composition and Sound Design (2018); Issue Project Room Artist-in-Residence (2017); Jerome Foundation Airspace Residency at Abrons Arts Center, New York (2019); Rauschenberg Residency 381 (2019). He is also a founding member of the performance collective Wildcat!. Toussaint-Baptiste is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in Technology In Music And Related Arts at Oberlin College & Conservatory.

Kemi Adeyemi is an Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and Director of The Black Embodiments Studio at the University of Washington. She is author of Feels Right: Black Queer Women & the Politics of Partying in Chicago (Duke University Press, 2022) and co-editor of Queer Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2021). Her most recent writing has appeared in GLQ, Women & Performance, and in the Routledge Handbook of African American Art History.

Alejandro Flores Monge is an artist and international arts administrator based in Querétaro, México. While studying for a BA in Art at Williams College, he performed with various dance ensembles, including Ritmo Latino, Kusika, and CoDa, as well as with Daniel Roberts and the Department of Dance of Ohio State University. His photography, videography, textile, and performance art has been showcased both in student exhibitions and sight-specific, solo showings. His administrative experience began as Artistic Director for the student ensemble, Ritmo Latino, and would lead to him to collaborating on curatorial and production projects alongside the ‘62 Center for Theatre & Dance at Williams College, The Williams College Museum of Art, The Clark, MassMoCA, Jacob’s Pillow, The Foundry, and The Yard.

Rebecca Fitton is from many places and peoples. She nurtures community through movement, conversation, and food, striving to equally prioritize her multifaceted roles as an artist, administrator, and advocate. Their work focuses on shifting cultural policy, asian america, and disability justice. Fitton is the Director of Studio Rawls and serves as Co-Director/Director of Operations and Development for Bridge Live Arts (San Francisco). Their writing has been published by Triskelion Arts, Emergency Index, InDance, The Dancer-Citizen, Etudes, Critical Correspondence, and Dance Research Journal. As an access practitioner, she creates audio description for experimental dance and performance artists. Currently, she is involved in a multi-year process with Adrienne Westwood and Angélica Negrón as an audio describer-dancer.  They hold a BFA in Dance from Florida State University and an MA in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jimmy Garver has over 17 years of experience creating sound designs and composing music for live performance, films, & art installations. He works primarily with composed sound and the spoken word, often mixing the timbres of acoustic instruments and human voices with synthetic audio to sculpt imagined textures and environments. In addition to this work, Jimmy has also consulted on large, AI-powered, synthetic voice projects. (Clients include Microsoft Research and Descript). He is one half of The Sending, an electronic music group; he hosts a monthly audio salon from his home in upstate New York called the Catskill Listening Club; he’s a member of the Conduction Series radio broadcast on WGXC/Wave Farm; and his sound art collaboration with his partner Rebecca Bray - called the Brayver Concern - has created audio-based interactive art installations throughout the Northeast U.S. His work has been heard at and/or commissioned by Ballet Hispanico/Apollo Theatre, Lincoln Center’s Dance On Camera festival, the Smithsonian Institute, Pushkin Industries, BAM, PS-122, Joyce SoHo, 92nd St. Y Harkness Dance, Bearnstow, Atlantic Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Folger Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, UMO Ensemble, Whitman College, Georgetown University, Bowdoin College. Some previous collaborators include Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Kimberly Bartosik, Katie Pearl & Lisa D’Amour, Duncan Macmillan, Mary Stuart Masterson, Aaron Posner, Michael Garces, Derek Goldman, linn meyers, Eric Tucker, Yury Urnov, David Muse, Kameron Steele, Matthew Torney.

Maggie Heath is an artist and production designer who has recently relocated to NYC, departing from 15 years in Portland, OR. They received a BFA from Portland State University, focusing in sculpture; though found a creative home in theaters.  Heath is an avid collaborator and makes work that is in search of crudely built tender moments. 

Sasha Okshteyn is a creative producer with over 10 years of experience in live performance production.  Sasha has collaborated and worked with artists and institutions such as Miles Greenberg, Adam Linder, Madeline Hollander, Jacolby Satterwhite, Yvonne Rainer, Pam Tanowitz, Baye & Asa, Stephen Petronio, Gerard & Kelly, David Gordon, Michael Portnoy, Performa, Museum of Modern Art, Pace Gallery, MCA Sydney and Imprint Projects. A native New Yorker, Sasha received her B.A in Art History and Dance from George Washington University, DC and M.A in Visual Arts Administration from NYU, NY.

Saša Kovacevic is a costume designer based in Berlin. 

Lauryn Siegel (aka STUDIO SIEGEL. she/they) is an independent mixed-media and lens-based artist, designer, photographer, video director and educator who has worked collaboratively across an extensive range of media and scales for nearly two decades. Having got their start in media production at Wesleyan University’s radio station WESU Middletown, they have nurtured a focused relationship with music, dance and performance practitioners for much of this time. Working fluidly between cultural and commercial realms they have intentionally evaded categorization throughout much of their career, instead choosing to evolve, grow, fail, change and learn with every project they engage in. They are eternally grateful to have worked with long-time friend Will Rawls on this latest piece, and would like to extend gratitude to the brilliant cast and crew who helped bring this vision to life over many years, states and situations.

David Szlasa has designed and toured internationally with artists including Bill “Crutchmaster” Shannon, Boots Riley and the Coup, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Sara Shelton Mann, Rennie Harris, Hope Mohr, and numerous others.  His work has been called “so timely as to feel timeless” by the SF Chronicle and has received an Isadora Duncan Award, Future Aesthetics Award, and a Gerbode.  Szlasa has taught design at Stanford University, St Mary’s College of Moraga, NYU, and Bard College. Szlasa keeps bees and chickens, tends a small garden and orchard, and lives with his partner and two sons in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Clermont NY.