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.
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