In the dance performance and video installation [siccer], Will Rawls experiments with stop-motion filmmaking techniques, wherein still photographs are strung together to produce a moving image, to consider how Black gestures are relentlessly documented, distorted, and circulated in lens-based media. Throughout [siccer]’s live performance, Holland Andrews, keyon gaskin, jess pretty, Katrina Reid, and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste are suspended in stop-motion film shoot. 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 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.

This presentation represents the long-awaited New York premiere of the work. Co-presented by Performance Space New York and L’Alliance New York, the live performances of [siccer] accompany the artist’s exhibition at The Kitchen, a book published by Wendy’s Subway, and an album published by the artist.

But tickets here!