Let the wild rumpus start! With food, drinks, music, and dancing, come celebrate the imaginative worlds of Maurice Sendak in the new exhibition Wild Things Are Happening: The Art of Maurice Sendak—which features over 150 artifacts showcasing the depth and breadth of his creativity. This fun-filled event also features:

• Live music by local LA indie-rock band Worn-Tin, with support/appearances from Los Angeles Eastside DIY puppet collective Freak Nature Puppets.        
• DJ set by dublab with Ale Cohen.
• Food trucks Love Bird Fried Chicken, Vchos, and Sugo Italiano, cash bar, and dessert bar in Founders Courtyard (aka Sweet Treats in the "Night Kitchen") with Oma’s Puffers and The Boba Truck.
• A Sendak-inspired, dance and music-infused tale of natural wonder from Director/Choreographer Zoe Rappaport of STORYTELLING THROUGH MOVEMENT (STM). Performances to take place on the front steps, just outside the gallery, and on Taper Courtyard.
• “Wild” Airbrush Tattoos by We Adorn You LA + paper crown making (inspired by Max from Where the Wild Things Are).

This program is part of Site & Sounds—an experiential live event series, curated by LAist, and centered on site-based discovery.

“The music is the honest, emotional little baby that grows inside my belly” explains LA native Warner Hiatt, aka Worn-Tin. Born and raised in Santa Monica, Worn-Tin’s music takes inspiration from the sun-drenched intensity of SoCal life. Long summer days, falling in and out of love, and laughing through the insecurities.  

Worn-Tin’s performance at Skirball’s Late Night! Wild Things Are Happening celebrates the recent release of their new record, Lurlene, as well as their debut at SXSW this past March. The tongue-and-cheek breakup album features breezy lo-fi synths and psychedelic rock accompanied by moody, heartfelt lyrics. Their sound is nostalgic, like Electric Light Orchestra, yet so fresh, like indie-rock pioneer Mac DeMarco, with trippy music video visuals akin to Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and 1980s public access TV.

Freak Nature Puppets is an object performance collective founded in November 2022. The group of self-taught artists injects absurdity into high art spaces and sneaks high art into comedy. The Los Angeles Times has recognized the group as a leading voice of the city’s “modern puppetry renaissance.” The group has performed sold-out shows at the Elysian Theater and Bob Baker Marionette Theater, created puppets for Hauser & Wirth’s DTLA gallery, and has conducted numerous puppetry workshops for children throughout California.

Alejandro Cohen is a musician and composer from Los Angeles, California, and the executive director of DUBLAB. Over the last two decades, Cohen has released music under numerous projects and groups including Languis and Pharaohs. He’s composed music for TV shows, documentaries, and educational materials, and recorded more than two hundred solo artists and bands as a sound engineer and consultant for dublab, KPFK 90.7 FM, Sony/Columbia, and the Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS). As dublab’s Executive Director, Cohen curates the station’s programming and podcast offerings, fundraises for the organization and curates the annual ambient music event Tonalism.

Zoe Rappaport is an LA/NY-based movement director/choreographer, creative producer, and interdisciplinary artist grounded in the belief that movement was born to unify us as a people and communicate on a deeper level. Working with global brands, GRAMMY-winning artists, and pop culture icons over the last fifteen years, Zoe has worked across many worlds from editorial, fashion, and tv/film to music videos, live performance, and site-specific immersive work. She has performed and/or shown work at venues such as The Museum of Contemporary Art LA, Human Resources LA, World of Dance NY, Webster Hall, Dance New Amsterdam, LaMama Experimental Theatre, and The Hatch Shell. For the last six years, Zoe has served as the Creative Producer for Dare to Dance in Public Film Festival (D2D) and is currently on faculty at AMDA College of Performing Arts. 

Just before the pandemic, Zoe founded STORYTELLING THROUGH MOVEMENT (STM)—a womxn-powered, non-hierarchical platform for historically underrepresented movement artists, choreographers, and multi-hyphenate creatives. The daughter of a late civil rights/anti-war activist and leader of expressive arts therapies, Zoe believes that dance and the arts are intrinsically woven into the fabric of the fight for social justice, and equity for all living beings. A founding member of the Choreographers Guild, she is passionately committed to mentoring the next generation of empowered movement artists, bringing dance into new and unexpected places, and elevating the field as a whole.