Rita Felciano - Dance View, A Quarterly Review of Dance = Winter 2010
"RAWdance's "Concept" series - this one was number seven - is an emotionally and intellectually satisfying way to tune into recent Bay Area
choreography. [...] Curating the programs are RAW's co-artistic directors Wendy Rein and Ryan T. Smith who have their ears to the ground,
ferreting out artists who want to try out re-thought or in-progress works.
In addition to presenting two studies from a work in progress, Smith and Rein, resurrected a powerful duet from their 2009 Fallout. [...]
Presented in this small studio, which suggests confinement on every side, the fierceness of this encounter - chest-bumpings, head against head
competition, yanking as if trying to dislocate limbs - suggested hostility yet, ingriguingly, it was as emotionally neutral as a man and a woman
together on stage can be.
The majority of these works-yet-to-be-born will see the light of day later in the year. But this relaxed, yet stimulating evening made for a
tasty upcoming season's opener."
Ng Yi-Sheng - Fridae.com = 1.7.2009 - Read the preview interview for the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival premiere of Fallout
Rita Felciano - SF Bay Guardian = 7.19.2006
"RAWdance's Wendy Rein and Ryan T. Smith are high-stakes gamblers [, ... who] exemplified the vitality of local dance."
Rachel Howard - In Dance = 5.2008
"...this "home for grassroots art and culture" in San Francisco is the place to catch ... the edgy,
chic modern/ballet style of RAWdance"
Joe Landini - Bay Area Reporter = 6.1.2006
"[RAWdance] has made a big splash this year.[...] Co-Directed by Ryan Smith and Wendy Rein, this is a
seriously sexy company that knows they're sexy and aren't afraid to show it."
Rachel Howard - SF Chronicle = 1.29.2006
"Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein's young company creates visceral movement for intimate spaces."
Rita Felciano - danceviewtimes.com = 12.2.2007 - Read the full review
"The evening was short, sweet and savvy."
"The fast-paced Accused took full advantage of the space's odd dimensions by sending its five dancers loping up and down this "runway"
arrangement. [...] the piece developed a claustrophobic sense of energy being forced into a channel, like storm water shooting down a creek."
"After 5:00 Duet [...] pitted Smith and Rein against each other in a power struggle that started out on a
comically macabre note. With Smith plopped in an easy chair, glass and bottle in hand, Rein draped herself over his shoulders, her
tentacle limbs keeping bottle and glass from his lips. On the floor, their encounters became increasingly intense, yanking and throwing
each others with moments of standoffs being less a truce than an opportunity to catch their breath to go at each other even more fiercely.
At the end you were left with the uneasy feeling not of closure but of an endlessly repeating cycle of fights for survival."
"A trio, Schematic Process, for Smith, Rein and Laura Sharp fascinated with its stiff-legged, angular and robotic verticality,
the formality of its design and the purity of its execution. The piece worked from a clearly defined concept and consistently held to it.
Stripped down and bare, this was a dance of lines and angles of the body, the geometry of the physical in space. Even hops and trembles
were images of exactitude; progressions could have been charted on graph paper."
Joe Landini - Bay Area Reporter = 11.29.2007
"[RAWdance's CONCEPT series] is bound to be the quintessential San Francisco experience of traveling to
a new neighborhood and discovering a hidden jewel in the city."
Rita Felciano - SF Bay Guardian = 1.20.2005
"The evening's best work came from new kids on the block, Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein's RAWdance.
Un[covered] was a funny, drum-tight, and oddly sensual quintet in which artifice transcended itself."
Sonia Reiter - IN DANCE = 12.2007
"What if going to a dance concert were more like going to the movies? You could sit back and relax,
eat and drink and, get to see all the action up close. With [...] the CONCEPT Series, produced by RAWdance's Artistic
Directors, Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein, we may get our chance. [...] Creating an event that is low cost, low tech and gives
the community a chance to come together, not just to watch the show and go home but perhaps to also get enough of a caffeine
buzz to talk about what they've just seen, seems like a pretty great idea."
Rita Felciano - danceviewtimes.com = 2.3.2006
"...Ryan T. Smith and Dudley Flores slapped and flipped each other against a wall. Exposing tenderness
and lust, this pairing sizzled with danger, aggression and curiosity."
Rachel Howard - SF Chronicle = 7.18.2006
"Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein's RAWdance [...] premiere Drained sent the choreographers plus
Dudley Flores and Laura Sharp slicing through the air with machete-sharp legs and arms. [...] It was sexy and solid."
Rita Felciano - SF Bay Guardian = 1.2006
"Per-verses takes on pornography: appreciatively, humorously, and analytically."
company = performances = support = contact
© RAWdance, 2005 = Header image by RJ Muna