RAWDANCE

Co-Artistic Directors Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein founded RAWdance in 2004. The company has become known for its approach to alternative spaces (honored in 2010 as a finalist in SF Weekly’s Masterminds Awards). RAWdance is a company in residence at ODC Theater in San Francisco and has been presented by has been presented by the Singapore Fringe Festival, YBCA’s Bay Area Now, Joyce SoHo, ODC Theater, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, Dance St. Louis’ Spring to Dance, Jacob’s Pillow Dance, and others. The company’s recent work with short dance films has received international recognition. Smith and Rein are frequent guest artists at universities and high schools across the country.

Since 2007, RAWdance has curated and hosted the Concept Series, a modern-day salon for contemporary Bay Area dance. Choreographers are invited to present work at any point in the creation process, and audiences are given an informal and intimate viewing experience. The Concept Series has presented over one hundred artists in its ten years.
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in 2016, RAWdance premiered Double Exposure. This evening-length work offered a snapshot of the current American contemporary dance landscape, with Smith and Rein performing the work of 16 different West Coast choreographers (including NCCAkron Dancing Labs Resident Artist Kate Wallich) back-to-back.
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In August 2018, RAWdance came to NCCAkron as the lead artists in a Dancing Lab residency exploring archival practice and embodiment. They invited Holly Bass (Washington, D.C.), Jonah Bokaer (Hudson, NY), Megan Young (Cleveland, OH), and Norton Owen (archivist at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA) to join them over the course of their ten days of research and exploration in Akron.