Join us for a conversation between featured artist and choreographer Reggie Wilson, whose work explores the intersections of African diasporic and Shaker traditions through movement and embodied research, and artist and composer Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, whose practice engages Black history, spirituality, and collective memory through music, performance, and storytelling.

Presented in conjunction with “A World in the Making: The Shakers”, this panel considers the histories, legacies, and representations of Black Shakers through the lens of Wilson’s POWER and Superville Sovak’s folk opera There Are NO Black Shakers.

This program is organized as part of “A World in the Making: The Shakers” at ICA Philadelphia on view through August 9, 2026.

 

Registration

Click here to attend this event. | Watch this conversation via Zoom here.

 

About the artists

Reggie Wilson

Reggie Wilson is Executive and Artistic Director, Choreographer and Performer of Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group.  His work draws from the cultures of Africans in the Americas and is combined with post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he sometimes refers to as “post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances.”

He has lectured, taught and conducted workshops and community projects, and had his work presented nationally and internationally. Wilson is a recipient of the Minnesota Dance Alliance’s McKnight National Fellowship (2000-2001), is a 2002 BESSIE recipient, and is a 2002 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. Wilson has been an artist advisor for the National Dance Project, a Board Member of Dance Theater Workshop, and in recognition of his creative contributions to the field, was named a 2009 United States Artists Prudential Fellow, as well as being a recipient of the 2009 Herb Alpert Award in Dance. In 2012 he was named a Wesleyan University’s Creative Campus Fellow, received an inaugural Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and received the 2012 Joyce Foundation Award for his successful work Moses(es) which premiered in 2013. His critically acclaimed work CITIZEN, premiered 2016 (FringeArts – World; BAM NextWave 2016 – NYC); both works continue to tour. Wilson was curator of Danspace Project’s Dancing Platform Praying Grounds: Blackness, Churches, and Downtown Dance (Platform 2018) and created the commissioned work “…they stood shaking while others began to shout” specifically for the space at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. He curated Grounds That Shout! (and others merely shaking), a series of performances in Philadelphia’s historic sacred spaces. His newest full-length works are POWER and The Reclamation.

 

Jean-Marc Superville Sovak

 Jean-Marc Superville Sovak is a multidisciplinary artist whose work critically fabulates around silent histories absent from dominant historical narratives. His current projects include There Are NO Black Shakers; A Contemporary Folk Opera, and a-Historical Landscapes, 19th-century landscape engravings altered to include images from contemporaneous Anti-Slavery publications. His participatory performance works include retracing the Underground Railroad at Hudson Valley historic sites, and organizing a “Burial for White Supremacy. ” His public art includes a memorial to some of the first Africans to arrive in Rhode Island. A Bard College graduate (M.F.A. Film/Video) Jean-Marc has exhibited at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, RecessArt, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Arts Westchester, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Manifesta 8 European Biennial. Jean-Marc has been a Visiting Artist/Lecturer at Bard College, SUNY New Paltz, Columbia University and Vassar College, and in 2020 was guest curator at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

 

About the exhibition

A World in the Making: The Shakers explores the design legacy of the Shakers, a religious group whose values of community, labor, and equality shaped their furniture, architecture, and everyday objects. Through works by contemporary artists influenced by the Shakers, alongside original Shaker-made pieces, the exhibition considers how their design principles remain relevant today.

Founded in 18th-century England and later established in the U.S. across more than twenty distinct communities, from Kentucky to Maine, Shaker communities developed a distinctive visual language—marked by simplicity, innovation, and purpose. While often celebrated for their aesthetic, Shaker designs were rooted in spiritual practice and collective life.

By pairing historical artifacts with newly commissioned works, the exhibition invites reflection on how Shaker ideals continue to inform conversations around inclusion, gender, and intentional living in the 21st century.

This exhibition was organized by the Vitra Design Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, and the Wüstenrot Foundation in collaboration with Shaker Museum.

Accessibility

ICA is committed to creating a welcoming environment for all visitors. For more notes on accessibility including accessible parking nearby visit our Accessibility landing page. If you require any accessibility accommodations or have any questions about the program, please contact us at hello@ica.upenn.edu.

Support

Programming at ICA is made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation. Public and Student Engagement at ICA is supported by the Bernstein Public Engagement Fund, Suzanne Weiss Doft & Jacob W. Doft, Stacey & Robert Goergen Jr., Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan, the Nash Family Foundation, Joline & David Stemerman, and by Dana McDonald Strong & Mark W. Strong.