PUSH Dance Company Impact Report
2023 – 2025
PUSH Dance Company empowers QT/BIPOC artists to create, perform, and thrive in San Francisco through accessible dance education, performance platforms, and sanctuary space that counters displacement. Founded in 2005 by Raissa Simpson, we advance visionary choreography demonstrating how intellect and creativity coexist on stage while championing global majority art forms as essential culture bearers.
Operating from the BIPOC Artist Sanctuary and Enrichment (BASE)—the Sanctuary—our 2,400+ sq ft dance space and 49-seat Black Box Theater at 447 Minna Street in SOMA serve as refuge where artists unapologetically express radical cultural imaginaries.
Vision, Mission, and Values
Vision
We envision a world where dance offers a broad platform for communal healing and regeneration that empowers and builds up each new generation.
Mission
PUSH Dance Company furthers the visionary philosophy, scholarship, and choreography of Raissa Simpson by demonstrating how intellect and creativity can reside on stage together through performances, education, and community engagement.
Values
PUSH is driven by three core values that define how we support artists, residents and their collaborators.
People
PUSH is driven by three core values that define how we support artists, residents and their collaborators.
Cultural Expression
Collectively, we believe in artists as culture bearers and co-conspirators whose lived experience and culture are worth hearing and witnessing through storytelling.
Placemaking
Space to create without barriers is an intention we hold for building partnerships, risk-taking and innovation. We intend to create spaces through collaboration and by being a good neighbor.
Company, Education
& Sanctuary
Company
We are developing and honoring the integral work of professional artists.
With a belief in artistic development, the PUSH organization, under the leadership of Raissa Simpson, has been a cultural force in the Bay Area since 2005.
Through the Company’s annual performances, residencies and festivals, PUSH has been a dance performance and education driver in the Bay Area, providing instruction for young people as well as adults and professional dancers aptly described as “Pushing The Standard,” by SF Chronicle.
THROUGH THE COMPANY:
98%
artists come from BIPOC and global majority communities
97%
audiences felt a deep connection to the performances
98%
felt the storytelling was innovation and experimental
2021-22 HIGHLIGHTS
3 WAVE Awards for the film EMME YA: The Final Expedition
Ashley Gayle promoted to Associate Artistic Director
a debut tour to UC Santa Cruz!
2022-23 HIGHLIGHTS
Izzie Award for Best Ensemble
Opened San Francisco’s first BIPOC Sanctuary
Izzie Award for Raissa Simpson in Outstanding Achievement
Education
Through enrichment and a thriving conservatory, we’re teaching the next generation of artists.
Whether it’s youth or adult students, we believe everyone should have access to dance training no matter their income or experience. We remain responsive to the needs of our students by offering a diverse range of enrichment classes.
This year, we supported more classes through our newly opened dance sanctuary. Classes are both on-site at our location and at local schools and community centers.
STUDENTS HAVE REPORTED:
88%
come from under-resourced neighborhoods
97%
felt a deeper sense of wellbeing and stress relief
91%
felt a sense of connection to their teacher/class
Sanctuary
We promote restorative dance practices steeped in wellbeing and trust.
We are committed to finding new ways to sustain little seen or heard artistic voices in the dance field, so in 2023, we founded the BIPOC Artists Sanctuary & Enrichment Network, better known as the Sanctuary at 447 Minna Street in San Francisco.
PUSH teamed up with the Community Arts Stabilization Trust in order to build out a newly designed 2400 sq ft space complete with a convertible studio, workstations and offices.
The Sanctuary houses classes, rentals and artists residencies year round. Two new residences were formed, the Hip Hop Residency & Training and the BASE Residency.
Numbers, Who’s Who & Acknowledgements
BY THE NUMBERS:
5,400+
hours serving artists and communities
100+
artists, collaborators, and production staff
500+
students who received dance training
10,000+
attended performances and residency showcases
WHO’S WHO:
Artistic
Artistic Director: Raissa Simpson
Associate Artistic Director: Ashley Gayle
HART Director: Erik K Raymond Lee
Administration
Studio Manager: Janesta Edmonds
Operations Admin: Quinn Martinez
Board of Directors
Chair: Kai Curtis
Vice Chair: Tamika Chenier
Secretary: Mariah Halperin
Treasurer: Brian Simpson
PUSH DANCE COMPANY IS MADE POSSIBLE BY:
The California Arts Council, Community Stabilization Trust, Dream Keeper Initiative, Grants for the Arts, Kenneth Rainin Foundation Office of Economic & Workforce Development through the Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative and SF CIF, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Shape Up SF, Zellerbach Family Foundation and from the generous support of individual donors.