REDCAT Presents Claudia Rankine And Will Rawls: WHAT REMAINS

From Dec. 9 through 11, 2021, Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, CalArts' center for contemporary arts in downtown Los Angeles, proudly presents What Remains, a collaboration between world-renowned poet and MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine and choreographer and Guggenheim Fellow Will Rawls.

Through movement and voice, four performers invite the audience across the threshold of a historical void produced by anti-Blackness and respond to violence and disappearance with a resonant, ghostly chorus. Inspired by Rankine's texts on racial violence-Citizen (2014) and Don't Let Me Be Lonely (2004)-the result is a performance at the edge of dance and poetry that meets and challenges the erasure of Black citizens with its own immersive disturbances.

What Remains premiered at the Fisher Center at Bard in 2017 and has been presented at Danspace Project (NYC), the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Walker Art Center.

What Remains (2017) was commissioned, developed, and premiered by Live Arts Bard, the commissioning and residency program of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. What Remains was developed with additional commissioning and development support from BRIClab Residency at BRIC, the French Institute Alliance Française's (FIAF) Crossing the Line Festival, the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, Yale Repertory Theater, and SummerStages at the ICA/Boston. Additional rehearsal space support provided by Gibney Dance (NY). The work has been presented by Danspace Project (NYC premiere), Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Walker Art Center.

Claudia Rankine is the author of six collections of poetry, including Just Us: An American Conversation, Citizen: An American Lyric, and Don't Let Me Be Lonely; three plays including HELP, which premiered in March of 2020 at The Shed, NYC, The White Card, which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson/American Repertory Theater) and was published by Graywolf Press in 2019, and Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue; as well as numerous video collaborations. She is also the co-editor of several anthologies including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind (FENCE, 2015). In 2016, she co-founded The Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII). Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the Poets & Writers' Jackson Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, and the National Endowment of the Arts. Rankine teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Will Rawls is a New York-based choreographer, performer and writer. His work has appeared at the MoMA and MoMA PS1; MCA, Chicago; Danspace Project; New Museum of Contemporary Art; Issue Project Room; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art; Walker Arts Center. At Danspace Project, he co-curated Lost and Found, comprised of performances and artist projects focused on the intergenerational impact of HIV/AIDS on dancers, women, and people of color. His writing has been published by Artforum International, the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Modern Art. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Robert Rauschenberg Residency and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant. He teaches and lectures widely in university, community and festival contexts.

Rawls is a 2021 recipient of The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts in Dance.

Claudia Rankine and Will Rawls: What Remains
Thursday, Dec. 9 at 8:30 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 10 at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 11 at 8:30 p.m.

Ticketing:
$25 for General admission
$20 for REDCAT members and students
$13 for CalArts students, faculty and staff

Tickets can be purchased at:
https://www.redcat.org/event/claudia-rankine-and-will-rawls-what-remains

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