J.B. Rosario, SF Examiner

February 23, 2019

Above all, the dancing shines throughout "At Your Service". 
Do we see the individuals who serve us? "At Your Service" demands that we do.

Jean Schiffman, SF/ARTS

February 2019

“I always start a piece from something I’m thinking and asking questions about,” says dancer/choreographer Risa Jaroslow. She is sitting on the floor of a dance studio in Emeryville with five dancers, one monologist (Arisika Razak, a former nurse-midwife) and composer/vocalist Amy X Neuburg.

Leslie Katz, SF Examiner

April 28, 2017

“Touch Bass” is an extraordinary showcase of Jaroslow and Mezzacappa’s creativity, and belief in the power of relationships.

Heather Desaulniers

April 27, 2017

In one of the most honest and pure performance collaborations I have seen so far this season, choreographer Risa Jaroslow and composer Lisa Mezzacappa birthed a rich, living environment for dancers Brendan Barthel, Tara McArthur, Lauren Simpson, musicians Mezzacappa, Eric Perney, Matt Small and three upright basses. The nine explored this democratic container of movement and sound, engaging with lush artistry...

Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Chronicle

October 16, 2015

It is not true that in the California dance world, all talent gravitates eastward. Two years ago, the acclaimed New York postmodernist dancer-choreographer Risa Jaroslow relocated to Oakland...the company has brought a distinctive quality to the scene. They should be around for a while.

Claudia Bauer, San Francisco Chronicle

October 8, 2015

From Gold Rush prospectors to Beat poets to techies, San Francisco has always been a destination for pioneers and freedom seekers. Among the most recent arrivals is veteran choreographer Risa Jaroslow, an expatriate New Yorker with postmodern bona fides and a thirst for adventure.

Mary Ellen Hunt, SF Gate

October 13, 2015

Choreographer Risa Jaroslow’s 2006 “Resist/Surrender” ...examines maleness and male power in a kaleidoscope of ways.

Andrea Pflaumer, Alex Hochman and Anita Katz, San Francisco Examiner

October 11, 2015

Resistance, a rallying cry for any number of sociopolitical groups in the Bay Area, gets a new twist in choreographer Risa Jaroslow’s West Coast premiere of “Resist/Surrender.”

Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

November 19, 2008

"From the moment that Gabriel Forestieri, Luke Gutgsell, Elise Knudson, and Paul Singh enter with sideways, spread-eagled leaps—their bodies flying parallel to the floor, then crashing down—we're ready to follow them anywhere…all of them dance magnificently—bold in their energy, tender with one another."

Gotham Gazette

July 7th, 2008

At noon and 1:30 p.m. today uninitiated passersby might have been startled by the group of red and black-clad dancers jumping off the Municipal Building columns and silently strutting and sashaying in the outdoor lunch hangout at 1 Centre Street.

Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

December 5, 2006

It is...a holiday treat of sorts to see a piece in which serious issues are softened only by smart choreographic abstracting and re-molding...They look almost as if they were in an operating room-as if stereotypical masculinity were something that could be probed for, maybe excised-Whatever you think it means in terms of a message, the image burns itself into your brain, into your gut.

Jennifer Dunning, New York Times

November 12, 2004

Exquisite, like a drop of air suspended in honey...Ms. Jaroslow's new "Whole Sky" creates an abstract community of dreamers in a dance built on people's responses when the choreographer asked what made them feel whole.

Jim Dowling, Dance Magazine Online

December 2004

In her reassuringly titled Whole Sky, Risa Jaroslow evokes a wish to heal a broken skyline - and ourselves - suggesting that we can counter the world's dislocations by reaching out to those we've kept at a distance...Jaroslow displays a gift for affirming more in others than one would think likely or possible, and in the process, she shows how we can make ourselves whole.

Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

April 15, 2003

Risa Jaroslow makes works about communities you can imagine living in. People who inhabit them dance together; they also know when to leave one another alone and when to step in to help. They can be feisty or serene...Their actions and physical dialogues are as fluent, variegated, and disciplined as the melodies we hear and the unseen musicians they embody.

Hilary Russ, City Limits

September 1, 2001

Lobbying comes in all forms, but with a pirouette? In the tumultuous world of welfare policy, one project is trying to get its message to Albany in an unconventional way: with a song and dance.

Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

December 26, 2000

Risa Jaroslow choreographs as if the most important thing in the world were how and why someone takes another's hand or leans into another's embrace, as if her mission were to explore the common needs and visions that bring people together.