Announcing RAWdance’s first ever Guest Curator for the CONCEPT series in San Francisco! We’re thrilled to share that Jocelyn Reyes will be the series’ inaugural Guest Curator for both the September 2026 and February 2027 rounds. This will be a rotating position; each Guest Curator will curate two rounds of the series before the role passes to someone new.
Jocelyn is the director of REYES Dance, a contemporary dance company based in San Francisco, and a vibrant member of the Bay Area dance community. She also produces and curates REYES Dance’s annual Dance Thrill Fest, a Halloween dance film festival held at the Roxie Theater. Jocelyn was one of RAWdance’s first Radiate Fellows. REYES Dance was a guest artist in the digital edition of the CONCEPT series in 2020.
On the cusp of the CONCEPT series’ 20th anniversary, this will mark the first time a Guest Curator will take the reins, while continuing to uphold the vision of sharing bite-sized works by a diverse range of local contemporary dance-makers. The CONCEPT series was started in 2007 by RAWdance’s Co-Artistic Directors Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein, who have curated and produced over 40 rounds of the series, featuring more than 200 dance-makers. Megan Kurashige has served as co-curator of the San Francisco series alongside Wendy and Ryan for the last six years. Katerina Wong served as co-curator from 2018 to 2023. Ryan and Wendy will continue to host the CONCEPT series on both coasts and to curate the Hudson Valley edition of the series.
Just as the CONCEPT series has always provided valuable opportunities to dance-makers, the new Guest Curator role will also offer artists the rare experience to curate dance without the burden of production. In turn, each Guest Curator will help to broaden the range of artistic voices supported by the CONCEPT series. We’re so excited for this next chapter of the series and we’re looking forward to presenting works by all of the guest artists curated by Jocelyn Reyes!
JOCELYN REYES (she/her) is a Latin American contemporary choreographer based in San Francisco. A first generation LA native, Reyes holds a B.S. in Cognitive Science and a B.A. in Dance from UCLA, and is the artistic director of REYES Dance (RD) and curator of Dance Thrill Fest. Reyes’ works explore themes at the intersection of horror and humor, layering theatricality and storytelling onto a rigorous contemporary movement base. Her past works have investigated poverty, domestic abuse, religion, chronic illness, and health within the context of Latin American culture. Reyes has premiered several evening length productions via RD, and her work has been presented by Yerba Buena Gardens Choreofest, FLACC Festival, the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, and MERDE Project, among others. She has been an artist in residence with Berkeley Ballet Theater, Paul Dresher Ensemble and Zaccho Dance Theater, and was a 2021 – 2023 RAWdance Radiate Fellow. Most recently, Reyes was awarded a San Francisco Arts Commission Impact Endowment Individual Artist Grant to support her most recent RD production, String Quartet No. ATE, which premiered in May of 2026 at ODC Theater.
Header image by Amal Bisharat. Jocelyn Reyes’s headshot by Guillermo Webster.