NEW YORK, NY.- Casey Kaplan is presenting Igshaan Adams' second solo exhibition Vastrapplek, literally translating from Afrikaans to "hold fast and stomp in place."

To secure a foothold is to root one's body to the earth, to bury one's foot so strongly in place that it is grounded and simultaneously ready to propel forward. This is the movement of the Vastrappers, the adolescent dancers of the Rieldans, a version of the indigenous South African dance Igshaan Adams witnessed as a child in the Northern Cape region. Centered around the concept of migration (of individuals and communities), Adams here adopts the language of dance as a connector of tribes, blood lines, and histories. His own narrative is embedded in this landscape — the earth holds the memories of his grandparent's courtship dance, a symbolic precursor to the racial and religious complexities of his youth. By embracing the cultural vestiges of post-apartheid Cape Town, Adams overlaps a colonialist tradition with modern South African expression. As the dancers stomp the earth in an attempt to flatten it, they simultaneously kick up dust in an opposite action, leaving behind tracks in the dirt akin to a record of their current, lived experience. 

For Vastrapplek, Adams focuses on the isolated area of these dancers' terrain and photographs the resulting imprints. The tracks in the dust are emboldened with a powder pigment and captured in print. Each image is then translated from an abstracted template into intricately woven tapestries in a collaboration with the artist's studio community, and made with locally sourced materials like wood, stone, and glass beads, nylon rope, silver and gold chain, and silk, mohair, and wool ropes purchased in Cape Town. The granular surface produces a realistic effect; the undulating waves of the dirt and the sun's position on the final footmarks, accentuate the contours of the cut earth and produce a relief-like composition. In Dit Voel Soos n Ewige Dans Sonder Einde of Begin (it feels like an eternal dance without end or beginning), Adams uses mohair for the first time to illuminate the sun's path. Black and navy stone beads interrupt the plane, enhancing the contrast between negative and positive space within the ground. While dark in palette, upon further inspection, bursts of unnatural colors highlight the tapestries' surface, producing an abstracted version of Adams' photographs. The vastness of the tapestries further mimic the scope of the Northern Cape region. Viewers are absorbed by the various rolling landscapes, confronted by the individual stories embedded in their topography.

Within a practice that spans weaving, sculpture, installation, and performance, Adams communicates how the body holds memory. As in previous series of work in which worn prayer rugs record the body's imprint, decayed linoleum floors reveal domestic daily use, or burrowed shortcuts of dirt roads symbolize the migration of communities, Adams documents the residue of the body's ritual and endurance of trauma. As the heels of the Vastrappers hit the ground, they intuitively manipulate the guided movements of a historic dance. Like the dirt shortcuts or "desire lines" that deviate from planned roads, the abstracted markings of these individual dancers each convey a story — their actions cannot be separated from their unique life circumstance and the impetus to create a meaningful, new narrative. This dance serves as both a lifeline and an exit strategy for the youth group as each dancer carves their own path of hope. Gold chain and orange and pink beads disrupt the fields of Die Donkiekar (the donkey cart), mimicking the foot's path in a speckled wash of seashells, mineral semi-precious stones, and rolled paper beads. The lively, dragged movement of the dirt is accentuated by the contrast of materials, indicating a "battle." Dancers are often paired together and communicate through trust. In a non-verbal exchange, partners move alongside each other symbiotically yet in defiance of their counterpart. The resulting imprint is an intersection of histories, a road map to the body and its way out of the dirt. 

In a grounding accent to the exhibition, Adams includes three floor sculptures. Hand-shaped and nestled on the floor with wire, beads, and nickel-plated charms, the works create a maze to be navigated. They are like enlarged beads of sand, abundantly magnified to enrich the path of the viewer and emphasize the contours of the ground. One sculpture hovers low, just above the gallery floor; its interlocking wires resemble the clouds of dust that result from the Vastrapper's dance. In contrast, a heavily beaded work rests directly on the floor in a corporeal web of tangled chain and copper and gold wire. Like the tapestries, its physicality bares the weight of the earth's pull, intimating to the viewer that they are intrinsically tied to earth, both born from and returning to dust.