Will Rawls

A choreographer and visual artist, Will Rawls creates dances and installations that examine gesture and the limits of communication. Rawls treats choreography as a mode of inquiry, one informed by the expressive conditions of Black performance, under which dance unfolds as movement shaped by power and language. His practice cultivates emergent forms of play and mutual perception as crucial experiences offered by live performance. 

For Made in L.A. 2025, Rawls presents Unmade, a monthly choreography spun from conversations with the performers about the daily frictions of life across LA’s built environments. The work is enacted through a set of evolving choreographic scores for six dancers and several objects, which traverses the museum, moving from the Hammer’s outdoor spaces into the galleries. Culminating on the Annenberg Terrace, Unmade excavates choreography’s capacity to reveal, undo, and defamiliarize the patterns and choices that mark our social rhythms. The materials, signage, and other elements that accompany the performance are reconfigured at the end of each presentation and remain on view here on the Annenberg Terrace until the next performance.

See the full performance schedule here.

Will Rawls was born in 1978 in Boston. A choreographer and visual artist, he creates performances and installations that incorporate dance, video, sound, text, printmaking, and animation to explore the intersection of visibility, erasure, and language. Solo exhibitions include the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2025); Adams and Ollman Gallery, Portland, OR (2022); and the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle (2021). Recent group exhibitions include the 12th SITE Santa Fe International (2025) and Counterpublic Triennial, Saint Louis (2023). Performances include the 12th SITE Santa Fe International (2025); REDCAT, Los Angeles (2025, 2021); MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2025); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2024); 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023); The Momentary, Bentonville, AR (2023); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2023, 2018); Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, OR (2023, 2017); On the Boards, Seattle (2023); Pace Live, Los Angeles (2022); Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle (2021); Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2019); ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn (2019, 2018); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2019); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); Yale Repertory Theater, Yale University, New Haven, CT (2019); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019). Recent honors and awards include grants from the Mellon Foundation (2023, 2022); a Creative Capital Award (2021); a National Dance Project Production Grant (2020); the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2022); and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2017). Rawls is an Associate Professor of Choreography and Interdisciplinary Practice at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned a BA from Williams College, Williamstown, MA (2000).