Open Machine
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener
WEST COAST PREMIERE
- Price
- $27*
- Genre
- Dance
- Season
- Winter/Spring 2026
- DATE
- APR 17-18
- TIME
- FRI-SAT, 8 PM
SAT, 2 PM
- RUNTIME
- Approx. 60 minutes, no intermission
- COUNTRY
- USA
- PROGRAM
- Not yet available
* Discounts available for REDCAT members, students & the CalArts faculty and staff
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About
Choreographers Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener combine technological and human pathways into a dynamic work that imagines an Artificial Intelligence lovingly programmed by experimental dance. Open Machine presents a constantly shifting performance with live speech-to-text transcription, projected images, and virtual renderings that amplify and react to the unfolding dance. Blurring the lines between brain, body, and machine, the piece is accompanied by a sweeping, mechanical sound score by electronic musician Mas Ysa and vocal artist Charmaine Lee, media design by Jesse Stiles, and lighting design by Davison Scandrett. As dancers navigate the stage with precision and abandon, Open Machine synthesizes disparate modes of working, and reflects the social and spatial structures that shape our daily lives.
On April 17, there will be a post-show Q&A with Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener moderated by REDCAT Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Performing Arts, Katy Dammers.
Presented in English with supertitles.
Please note: This program contains flashing lights.
Each element converses in real time with the bodies on stage, in isolation or layered in tandem, to create a unique performance experience that interrogates and illuminates technology through the most powerful tool available to all artists: play.
—
Sarah Cecilia Bukowski, Fjord Review
This project is made possible in part with support from the New England Foundation for the Arts, The Samuel Scripps Foundation, The Princess Grace Foundation, The New York State Council for the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, University of Michigan’s Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) and Stamps School of Art & Design, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. Open Machine received residency and creation support at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, Pillow Fort Art Center, Al Held Foundation and River Valley Arts Collective, Headlands Center for the Arts, The Barnard Movement Lab, and The Bogliasco Foundation underwritten by Van Cleef & Arpels.
about the artists
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener are dance artists. Their work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances, and dances for film in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, and MoMA/PS1. Throughout their career they have maintained a commitment to queer culture and aesthetics. Their partnership intentionally blurs authorship and maintains a deep commitment to collaboration with a diverse community of dancers, performers, designers, and artists.
cast & creative team
Concept and Direction: Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener
Media Design: Jesse Stiles
Music: Charmaine Lee, Mas Ysa
Creation and Performance: Morgan Amirah Burns, Savannah Gaillard, Jennifer Gonzalez, Michael Greenberg, Claude CJ Johnson, Catherine Kirk, Cori Kresge, Kalliope Piersol
Lighting Design: Davison Scandrett
Costumes: Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, in collaboration with performers
