BIO
Artist, scholar, dance filmmaker, and community organizer from Chicago. PhD from Yale University’s African American Studies and American Studies (2024). Dissertation manuscript entitled, Geometry of a Ghost: Chicago Footwork and the Sound System Continuum. Featured as a keynote speaker at the Japan Black Studies Association's 70th anniversary at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan (2024). Two essays to be published in 2025: a chapter on Chicago footwork in the forthcoming anthology Dancing on the Third Coast, published by the University of Illinois Press, and an essay, “In the Break of Images,” for a book about David Alekhuogie’s photography, published by Aperture. Wills’s 2023 film collaboration, Skywalkers, is part of the City of Chicago’s public art collection, installed in the international terminal at O’Hare International Airport. He is a musician and an active VJ (video DJ), performing in improvisational multi-channel settings. In 2021, Wills’s projection film, Footnotes, was featured in the New York Times and dubbed “public art of the year” in Time Out magazine. Currently co-directing Body of the City, an experimental documentary dance film focused on Chicago footwork, supported by an award from the MacArthur Foundation.
EDUCATION
2024 | PhD in African American Studies and American Studies, Yale University | Dissertation title: Geometry of a Ghost: Chicago Footwork and the Sound System Continuum | Dissertation Advisors: Dr. Daphne Brooks (co-chair), Dr. Michael Veal (co-chair), Dr. Charles Musser, and Dr. Elijah Anderson
2013 | Master’s Degree in Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University | Received “distinguished thesis award” for master’s thesis, Shangaan Electro from Soweto to Sonar | Advisor: Dr. Martin Scherzinger
2005 | Bachelor’s Degree in English, Yale University
AWARDS
2023 | Commissioned by the City of Chicago to create a permanent, large-scale installation film (Skywalkers) for the new international terminal at O’Hare Airport
2022 | Commissioned by Art on the Mart to create Billiken, a projection film dedicated to the Bud Billiken Parade, co-produced by the Chicago Defender Charities and Shkunna Stewart
2021 | Commissioned by Art on the Mart to create Footnotes, a projection film that was recognized as “public art of the year” (Time Out), “music project of the year” (Chicago Reader), and “dance project of the year” (Chicago Tribune)
2019 | Awarded MacArthur Foundation and Field Foundation of Illinois Media & Storytelling Grants for the forthcoming documentary film Body of the City
2019 | Awarded the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project Grant for In the Wurkz by The Era Footwork Crew, featuring films, poetry, and creative direction by Wills Glasspiegel
2015 | Recognized as “cultural organizer of the year” in the influential arts/culture publication, FADER Magazine
2015 | Awarded “Crossing Boundaries Arts Prize” from Arts and Public Life at the University of Chicago
2014 | Co-recipient of a Peabody Award for contributions to the program Afropop Worldwide
2014 | Filmmaking grants from Harvard Hip Hop Archive for Chicago footwork short films
TEACHING AND LECTURES
2024 | “Geometry of a Ghost: Chicago Footwork, Dance Filmmaking and Community Organizing” Keynote lecture and screening at Japan Black Studies Association Conference in Tokyo.
2024 | “Icy Lake: Community Filmmaking and Electronic Dance Music in Gay New York City.” Lecture and screening at Jissen Women’s University, Gender Studies Center in Tokyo.
2023 | Visiting lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Visual and Critical Studies, created and taught the class Tilt: Issues in Visual Culture, an undergraduate seminar in Chicago, IL2021 | Presented my short film Dancer of Time at NYU in a presentation focused on Dr. Romi Crawford’s edited collection Fleeting Monuments to the Wall of Respect. The event was led by Dr. Deborah Willis and NYU’s Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture.
2019-20 | Teaching fellow at Yale University in African American Studies + Film/Media Studies | Co-taught Archive Aesthetics & Community Storytelling and Family Narratives/Cultural Shifts with Professor Thomas Allen Harris in New Haven, CT
2016-2017 | Teaching fellow at Yale University in American Studies + Film/Media Studies | Co-taught Documentary Filmmaking Workshop with Professor Charles Musser | New Haven, CT
2012-2016 | Yale University | Presented talks and screenings at the Beinecke Library’s digital lab series, the Critical Encounters lecture series hosted by the Department of American Studies, and the Performance Studies Working Group in New Haven, CT
2014 | Icy Lake | Screened documentary film at “The Fun and the Fury: New Dialectics of Pleasure and Pain In the Post-American Century,” American Studies Association Conference in Los Angeles, CA
FILMMAKING
Technical expertise as a filmmaker includes cinematography, writing, editing, animation, music production, color correction, and sound mixing. Films screened at Walker Art Museum, Stony Island Arts Bank, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, MANA Contemporary (New Jersey and Chicago), the Paris Philharmonic, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Yale University's Beinecke Library, the Kunstpalast Museum in Düsseldorf, NeoShibuya in Japan, and several film festivals and academic conferences. Film credits include:
2023 | Skywalkers | Director, Cinematographer, Editor | Skywalkers is a silent installation film that unites Chicago footwork and Native American dance. It is on permanent display at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
2022 | Billiken | Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Animator | Billiken is a projection film in partnership with the Bud Billiken Parade and the Chicago Defender for Art on the Mart’s 2.5-acre projection system in downtown Chicago.
2022 | Lonely | Director, Cinematographer, Editor | Lonely is a dance film set to the song “Lonely” by Jana Rush and DJ Payal. It debuted online and was screened on large-scale public screens around Shibuya in Tokyo, Japan, presented by Neo Shibuya.
2022 | Cadenza | Co-director, Cinematographer, Editor | Cadenza is a short film collaboration with Anna Martine Whitehead’s abolitionist, Black feminist opera, FORCE! Cadenza follows the performers working at the Graham Foundation in Chicago. It debuted on the Open TV (OTV) platform.
2021 | Footnotes | Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Animator, Music Producer | Footnotes is a projection film made for the massive facade of the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago. Art on the Mart and DCASE commissioned the film in connection with the “Year of Chicago Music.”
2020 | Eschecagou | Director, Cinematographer, Editor | Independent dance film collaboration for Indigenous Peoples’ Day that brings together footwork and Native dancers in the wake of protests for Black and Indigenous rights in downtown Chicago.
2020 | Dancer of Time | Wills directed a short film, Dancer of Time, with historic Chicago dancer Darlene Blackburn. The film debuted online with the publication Sixty Inches from Center, where it was joined by an extensive oral history narrated by Ms. Blackburn.
2018 | I am the Queen | Co-Director, Cinematographer, Editor | I am the Queen is a dance film collaboration with footwork dancer Murda Mommy and electronic music producer Jlin. The project celebrates the women of Chicago footwork. It debuted with FADER Magazine in 2017 and screened in various dance film festivals and cultural centers, including at the MCA and the African American Cultural Center at Yale University.
2017 | Inevitable Shift Fear | Director, Cinematographer, Editor | Inevitable Shift Fear is a short experimental dance film with ambient music by DJ Earl and cameos from DJ Rashad and DJ Spinn. It was shown in several unique contexts, including at the Body + Camera Film Festival in Jersey City, where Mana Contemporary installed it inside an industrial elevator.
2017 | Sabanoh | Director, Cinematographer, Editor | Sabanoh is a collaboration with Sierra Leonean artist Ahmed Janka Nabay. The video debuted on the website NOWNESS in 2017. Another version of the film was shown at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2016 in an exhibition, "The Fierce and the Fancy: Urban Masks from Sierra Leone."
2015 | Bang'n on King Drive | Director, Cinematographer, Co-Editor | Bang'n on King Drive is a popular music video made for RP Boo, the originator of footwork music in Chicago. It traverses the historic Bud Billiken Parade with the dance troupe K-Phi-9 on the South Side of Chicago. It has screened across Chicago, at the Paris Philharmonic, and the Kunstpalast Museum in Düsseldorf, Germany.
2014 | Icy Lake | Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Co-Writer | Icy Lake is a short documentary that chronicles the long life of an obscure dance song from the mid-1990s called “Icy Lake.” The film features luminary performers from the contemporary vogue ballroom community, including Kevin Aviance, DJ MikeQ, and Kevin JZ Prodigy. The film is featured prominently in Dr. Jafari Allen’s 2023 book, There’s a Disco Ball Between Us (Duke University Press).
2015 | Meet the Era | Director, Cinematographer, Writer, Editor | Meet the Era is a short documentary produced by Wills with The Era Footwork Crew in Chicago. The film draws attention to the importance of footwork dancing and its relationship to footwork music in Chicago. The film debuted online with VICE and has been screened in many contexts, classrooms, and festivals, including at the Harper Theater in Chicago.
2013 | Making Tracks | Director, Cinematographer, Writer, Editor | Making Tracks is a short documentary on Chicago's Teklife DJ collective. Teklife’s DJs are known as originators of Chicago footwork music and dance, a regional tradition with broad global uptake.
2011 | Kenya (Music for Rain) | Cinematographer | Kenya (Music for Rain) is a music video, song, and charity project led by Solange Knowles and Chris Taylor from the band Grizzly Bear. The video features cinematography by Wills.
WRITING
2025 | “In the Break of Images,” an essay in A Reprise, the forthcoming photography book devoted to David Alekhuogie’s photographs and installations | Aperture
2026 | “Below as Above: Chicago Footwork 1986 - Present,” essay with accompanying photography / photo-collages in Dancing on the Third Coast, edited by Susan Manning and Lizzie Leopold | University of Illinois Press
2021 | “Dancing the Wall of Respect” | Essay and visual art by Glasspiegel in Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect, edited by Romi Crawford | University of Minnesota Press / Green Lantern Press
2021 | “Each One, Teach One: Footwork in Minnesota” | Essay, photographs and oral histories in MN Artists | Published by the Walker Art Center
2019 | “Kicking a Leg” | Essay with photography / photo-collage in Portable Gray, published by the University of Chicago Press
2018 | “My Friendship with Janka Nabay, Genius of Bubu” | NPR Music
2016 | Interview with Omar Souleyman | Interview in Punk Ethnography edited by Michael Veal and Tammy Kim | Wesleyan University Press2014 | “Footwork: Ten Essential Tracks” | Pitchfork.com
2013 | “Shangaan Electro from Soweto to Sonar” | Master’s thesis for NYU’s Media, Culture and Communication Department
2012 | “What Nollywood Tells Us About Africa” | Interview with poet Odia Ofeimun in The Guardian
2006 | Interview with saxophonist Fred Anderson in Downbeat Magazine
PERFORMANCE
2024 | Archer Ballroom, Chicago | VJ (video DJ), filmmaker, installation designer | Designed and installed a four-panel visual projection system, composed films specifically for the system, and collaborated with featured DJs, including long-time collaborator Jana Rush from Chicago and Foodman from Japan.
2023 | The Promontory + Chicago Underground Film Festival | VJ, filmmaker, installation designer, event producer | Designed and installed a six-panel visual projection system, composed films specifically for the system and collaborated with featured DJs, including Chicago footwork originators RP Boo and DJ Spinn.
2023 - Present | Hairpin Arts Center, Chicago | Improvising original music on keyboard and synthesizer for weekly audio-visual jam sessions Signals and Pixels.
2017 - 2021 | In the Wurkz | Creative Director, Dance Filmmaker | In the Wurkz was a touring footwork dance performance by The Era Footwork Crew that won the National Dance Project Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts in 2020. The show featured multi-panel installation films by Glasspiegel as its set design, presented at the Stony Island Arts Bank and the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis.
2017 - Present | Open the Circle’s Dance Downs in Chicago | Event producer | As co-founder and co-director of the nonprofit Open the Circle, Wills developed and led a series of dance events called Dance Downs. These events created performance opportunities for Black youth dance groups across Chicago, engaging over 10,000 attendees over several years. Unlike traditional dance competitions, Dance Downs were free and inclusive, ensuring that every participating group was compensated. Events took place in neighborhood parks like Hamilton Park on the South Side and Austin Town Hall on the West Side, as well as on leading downtown stages, including Navy Pier and Millennium Park, through a multi-year collaboration with the Chicago House Music Festival.
2011 - 2014 | Shangaan Electro project from South Africa | Organizer and administrative assistant | Co-organized the first international tour of modern Shangaan / Tsonga dance music from Soweto to a week of tour dates across Europe, including performances at the Barbican in London, the Sonar festival in Barcelona, and the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Introduced the project to the London-based record label Honest Jon’s and booking agents internationally.
2008 - 2014 | Ahmed Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang | Co-manager and administrative assistant | Worked with Janka in Brooklyn to build a band to play his music, a style known as bubu music from Sierra Leone. Nabay performed at PS-1 MoMA and toured to the South by Southwest festival before signing to David Byrne’s label, Luaka Bop. Our work together is summed up in a eulogy penned for National Public Radio, “My Friendship With Janka Nabay, Genius of Bubu Music."
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
Lifelong focus on social justice advocacy through the arts. Frequently amplifies underrepresented voices while building partnerships, from grassroots efforts to global collaborations.
2017–Present | Open the Circle (OTC) | Co-founder, Co-director, Event Producer, Grant Writer
Co-founded Open the Circle (OTC), a Chicago dance, education, and racial justice nonprofit. Organized multi-year initiatives and developed partnerships with dance companies and arts institutions across the city (the MCA, Social Works, University of Chicago). OTC has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Joyce Foundation, the Field Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the MacArthur Foundation.
2009–2016 | Administrative assistant and documentarian of Black electronic dance music
Advocated for electronic musicians from Sierra Leone (bubu music) and South Africa (Shangaan electro). Planned tours, secured contracts, and helped repatriate ownership of recordings to musicians.
TECHNICAL SKILLS AND EXPERTISE
Cinematography and Camera Systems
Shoots on Sony FX6 and a range of Sony camera systems and lenses. Experienced with drones and underwater filming, as well as 16mm cinematography using a Bolex camera. Early work with the Canon 7D seeded a hybrid practice merging still photography, collage, and motion design. Skilled in lighting, stabilization, and handheld shooting for both documentary and
installation contexts.Editing, Animation, and Motion Design
Fluent in the Adobe Creative Suite, including Premiere Pro (editing), After Effects (animation and motion graphics), Photoshop (compositing), and Illustrator (graphic layout). Creates claymation and stop-motion sequences and fuses analog and digital animation methods. Develops animated GIFs and hybrid visual forms that bridge cinema, photography, and design.
Sound, Music, and Synthesis
Performer and composer with lifelong practice in piano, keyboard, and guitar. Produces original music using Ableton Live, Logic, Pro Tools, MPC software, and analog drum machines. Builds and performs on modular synthesizers, exploring voltage feedback, randomization, and signal conversion with the Moog Mother-32, KOMA Field Kit, and other modular systems. Integrates light- and sound-responsive Arduino sensors for audiovisual triggering and performance.Radio,
Field Recording, and Digital Storytelling
Trained in radio production, narrative sound design, and field recording. Experienced in documentary composition, mixing, and editing in Pro Tools. Integrates radio methods and oral history techniques into broader multimedia and digital storytelling practice across film and installation.Live Visual Systems and
Interactive Media
Performs as a live VJ and installation artist using CueLab, VDMX, Isadora, and TouchDesigner. Designs multi-channel projection systems integrating real-time visual and sonic feedback. Experienced with NDI routing, signal patching, and reprogrammed security-camera feeds as visual interfaces. Currently studying Unreal Engine for creative use in projection and game-based art.
Installation and Performance Design
Creates immersive projection environments and live media systems that transform architectural and public space. Works across multiple panels and live trigger systems, favoring
improvisational spatial composition over fixed mapping. Performs regularly with Signals and Pixels at Hairpin Arts Center, integrating Nord keyboard sampling with live visuals.
Fabrication and Sculptural Practice
Trained in MIG and TIG welding for sculptural and installation-based applications. Expanding fabrication and mixed-media practice through workshops at the Chicago Industrial Corridor, incorporating metalwork, transparency, and collage into kinetic and light-based environments.
PRESS
2023 | WTTW / PBS: “O’Hare Video Installation Combines Footwork and Native American Dance Styles into Uniquely Chicago Film”
2022 | WBEZ / NPR: “Youth Dance Take Center Stage in a New Film about the Bud Billiken Parade”
2021 | New York Times: “‘It Taunts the Eye’: Footwork’s Fast Moves Loom Over Chicago”
2020 | WBEZ / NPR: “What One Nonprofit Is Doing To Keep Footwork Alive And Kicking”
2018 | Chicago Reader: “Chicago’s footwork community takes center stage at the MCA”
2018 | FADER Magazine: “God bless the women of Chicago Footwork”
2017 | Chicago Tribune: “The Era is taking steps to preserve the history of Chicago footwork culture”
