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(Artistic Director & Founder) has an extensive performance career in the Bay Area. She received a BFA from Purchase College at SUNY on talent-based scholarship; subsequently attending the schools of Dance Theatre of Harlem, Paul Taylor School, among others. She has toured and performed as a company member with Robert Moses Kin (2002-2007) and Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho Dance Theatre (2007-Present). Performances include numerous national festivals like Jacob’s Pillow where Village Voice dance critic Deborah Jowitt noted, “Simpson dances big.”
Raissa was born Cleveland -- and raised in San Jose, California -- hailed by Dance Spirit Magazine for “Reflective Contemporary Choreography”, Simpson makes vibrant dances embodying socially relevant issues. Her artistic achievements include Peoples Choice |
Award from San Jose State University, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s CHIME, Regional Dance America Award plus numerous honors and commissions.
Raissa is an African American-Filipina choreographer whose cross-cultural works gain a deeper understanding of challenges of mixed heritage by using non-traditional dance forms. At the heart of her study, she seeks to engage the multiracial community to gain deeper understanding of rigid American color-lines. She specifically gathers materials from intercultural patterns of isolation or adaptation. |
