Yerba Buena Gardens ChoreoFest highlights the spectacular strength, diversity and vibrancy of the Bay Area contemporary dance scene through a two-weekend mini festival of site-specific work. Curated by RAWdance’s Artistic Directors, the fifth annual YBG ChoreoFest features an array of distinguished local dance companies of extraordinary performances throughout the Gardens’ lawns and architecture.

ASL interpretation will be provided for this event. This program moves across multiple locations and seating is very limited. Personal stools or portable chairs are welcome.

YBG ChoreoFest 2022 Dates:

• Day One: July 23, 2022, starts in the East Garden
• Day Two: July 30, 2022, starts in the Esplanade

Day One Artists:

Fact/SF is a San Francisco-based contemporary dance company, founded in 2008 by Charles Slender-White. FACT/SF creates aesthetically diverse and rigorously crafted performance events that encourage viewers to feel intensely, think critically and broaden their perspectives. FACT/SF’s work has been commissioned and produced locally by ODC Theater, CounterPulse and others, and the company has toured throughout the United States, Russia and the Balkans. In addition to our creative work, FACT/SF supports the local dance ecology via Fieldwork. Fieldwork is a set of programs and services that provide opportunity, guidance and direct support for women-identified artists, queer artists and artists of color.

Fullstop Dance is a project-based contemporary repertory dance company located in the Bay Area. Fullstop was founded in 2015 by Artistic Director Kathryn Florez. The company is dedicated to fostering choreographic process and performance opportunities for artists in a safe and equitable way as well as providing members of the broader community the experience of movement through video projects, performances, and educational opportunities. Fullstop has presented work throughout the Bay Area, including at ODC Theater, Palace of Fine Arts, Cowell Theater, Mission Dance Theater, and Joe Goode Annex, as well as in Nevada City. Florez has been commissioned by The Merde Project and RAWDance Concept Series, as well as SALT Dance’s Link Program. She was also an Artist in Residence at Berkeley Ballet Theater and held residencies at SAFEhouse Arts and LEVYdance.

Nava Dance Theatre, led by Artistic Director Nadhi Thekkek, is a bharatanatyam dance company based in San Francisco, California. Nadhi uses bharatanatyam to navigate the complicated intersections of racism and feminism in the South Asian diaspora. Her past work delves into unheard refugee voices of the 1947 British Indian Partition, her community’s response to the #metoo movement, and intergenerational explorations through bharatanatyam and modern dance. Nadhi’s work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Community Foundation, Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange with Margaret Jenkins and others. She has performed her work at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club (NYC), The Dance Place DC, National Steinbeck Center (Salinas), The Dance Center (Vancouver) to name a few.

RAWdance is an award-winning contemporary dance company known for transforming theaters and public spaces through a mix of performance, curation, and collaboration. Under the artistic direction of Ryan T. Smith, Wendy Rein and Katerina Wong, the company’s nuanced, charged dances pose questions ranging from the broadly social to the intimately personal. SF Chronicle described the company as ”witty, whip-smart, and beautiful to watch.” Critical Dance called RAWdance a “rare treasure” that “combines choreographic excellence, innovative structures, groundbreaking concepts and impeccable performances.” Founded in San Francisco in 2004 by Smith and Rein, the company grew to include Wong as a third Artistic Director in 2019, while also expanding to two locations — New York’s Hudson Valley as well as its home base in San Francisco. RAWdance’s work for this weekend’s program is choreographed by Katerina Wong. rawdance.org

See updated safety guidelines under Visitor Information.