MAIN GALLERY
PUSH Dance Company x Root Division
Join us for an evening of live performance featuring the award-winning San Francisco-based PUSH Dance Company. Experience contemporary movement rooted in Black dance traditions including original choreography in dialogue with Trina Michelle Robinson’s solo exhibition Open Your Eyes to Water.
Nova Power
Choreography by Raissa Simpson
Performed by Jeremy Brooks, Ethan Dennis, and Erik K Raymond Lee
Stardust (work-in-progress)
Choreography by Ashley Gayle
Performed by Ashley Gayle
Performances will start at 6:15pm
PUSH Dance Company is an award-winning multidisciplinary dance company and education institution rooted in the creative technological pulse of San Francisco. Founded in 2005 and led by Artistic Director Raissa Simpson, PUSH champions contemporary dance, preserves Black dance traditions, and operates as both a cultural institution and an artists sanctuary. The company has graced over 70 stages across the United States — from Ailey Citigroup Theater and Joyce SoHo in New York City to the Los Angeles Theater Center, Aspen Fringe Festival, Ferst Center in Atlanta, Links Hall in Chicago, Dance St. Louis and beyond — bringing bold, boundary-pushing work to audiences nationwide.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Raissa Simpson is a postdisciplinary artist known for bold, boundary-pushing choreography that centers the complex experiences of racialized bodies at the intersection of race, culture, and identity. She holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from UC Davis, where she developed a rigorous artistic practice bridging scholarship and performance. She had an extensive career with the Bay Area’s most distinct choreographers, Robert Moses’ Kin and Joanna Haigood's Zaccho Dance Theatre. In 2005, Simpson founded award-winning PUSH Dance Company in San Francisco — now a cultural institution and artist sanctuary recognized with residencies at Montalvo Arts Center and Margaret Jenkins' CHIME, and supported by the California Arts Council, Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Wattis Foundation, and Grants for the Arts. A scholar as much as an artist, Simpson is the author of the book chapter, Writings On Dance: Artistic Reframing for Celestial Black Bodies for Palgrave Macmillan and currently lectures in Theater & Performance Studies department at Stanford University.
ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Ashley Gayle (she/her) is a performing artist, choreographer, and credentialed dance educator native to the Bay Area. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance with a minor in Business Management from UC Irvine, and has performed nationally with a range of Bay Area companies spanning Modern, Contemporary, Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Afro-Cuban forms. Her commitment to dance as a community practice has driven teaching residencies across the Bay Area, engaging youth through adults in vibrant, accessible classes — work that led to her current position as a youth dance educator with Oakland Unified School District. As Co-Director of Visceral Roots Dance Company, she choreographs intergenerational works rooted in social justice, responding to the ever-shifting cultural landscape of the Bay Area. Gayle joined PUSH Dance Company in 2014 as an apprentice and has steadily grown into one of its most essential voices — serving as Rehearsal Director before being named Associate Artistic Director in 2022. Her decade-long relationship with PUSH has profoundly shaped her artistry, performance values, and creative vision.
COMPANY ARTISTS
Jeremy Brooks is a multidisciplinary artist from Deep East Oakland. He is a company member of PUSH Dance Company based in San Francisco, and has notable collaborations with the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO), 5th Quarter Bantaba, Visceral Roots Dance Company, and Dance A Vision. As an artist, Jeremy is interested in using all his talents to tell stories that bring awareness, healing, and joy to his communities.
Ethan Dennis (he/him) is a Louisiana-born, but Bay Area-based performer, choreographer and arts educator. He minored in dance at the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2017 and was certified in Umfundalai, a pan-african Caribbean dance technique in 2021. Most recently, he passionately explores dance through performance, films, and voguing in the Oakland ballroom scene.
Erik K. Raymond Lee (he/him) is from Oakland, CA. He received formal dance training from UC Berkeley, BA in Dance & Performance Studies (2010) and MFA in dance from Mills College (2017). Erik is a dance lecturer at UC Berkeley, Residency Manager of Zaccho Dance Theatre’s Artist in Residence programs and Director of PUSH & Zaccho’s HART program. As a dancer artist, Erik currently works with Dimensions Dance Theater, PUSH Dance Company and Zaccho Dance Theatre.
_______________________________________________________________
FRANK-RATCHYE PROJECT SPACE
B Colleen: They Stem and They Bloom
Organized by Kristina Singleton
Exhibition Dates: May 9, 2026 - June 6, 2026
The Frank Ratchye Project Space is pleased to present They Stem and They Bloom, a solo exhibition by Root Division Studio Artist B Colleen.
Growing outwards from their hands, eyes, and mouth, lavender becomes a symbol of healing energy- a gesture that begins as a way to heal from within and extends as an offering to others. What grows with the artist is not kept but shared. In this exhibition, artist B Colleen moves between an equally vivid dream state and coexisting reality where lavender stems and blooms as a constant source of calm.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
B Colleen is a multidisciplinary Mexican-American artist whose practice is a meditative search for being and belonging, a ritual rooted in gratitude and mindfulness. Their work spans painting, sculpture, and installation, using color abstraction and motifs to depict daydreams that act as spaces for both escape and reflection. Based in Oakland, California, they hold a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from San Francisco State University and have exhibited work throughout the Bay Area.
