Dance critic based in San Francisco
Rita Felciano
Rita Felciano has chronicled the San Francisco Bay Area dance scene for decades. Swiss by upbringing, she began writing dance criticism in 1990 and became a defining voice at the San Francisco Bay Guardian, where she covered everything from San Francisco Ballet to the city’s most experimental and underground dance-makers until her retirement in 2014.
Known for showing up to performances that other critics wouldn’t—from warehouse shows to site-specific work—she was often the first writer to take emerging choreographers seriously, helping launch careers across the local dance ecosystem. Her writing has also appeared in Dance Magazine, DanceViewTimes, Dance Studio Life, and 48 Hills, and she has served as a dance consultant for the Pew Charitable Trusts. Felciano is widely regarded as one of the Bay Area's most generous, rigorous, and enduring voices in dance journalism.
Collected Criticism
“One intrepid writer carried on, Rita Felciano. Hers was the magic of persistent curiosity and devotion to the field. If you couldn't see it all, you could read Rita.”
—Brenda Way, Founder & Artistic Director, ODC
30 YEARS: The Dance Community’s Reflections on Rita Felciano
December 1, 2014, IN DANCE
Following Felciano’s retirement from the San Francisco Bay Guardian in September 2014, Dancers’ Group put a call out to our members for their reflections on her contributions to the Bay Area dance ecosystem. We are delighted to highlight many of the thoughtful remarks on this extraordinary writer, advocate of all things moving and astute audience member... read more
Team Rita
By Ann Murphy, December 1, 2014, IN DANCE
When I first got a call from Rita Felciano, she was working at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival office in Fort Mason Center and I was the editor at the Bay Area Dance Coalition, a service organization in the same building. It was the 1980s, and Rita asked to meet with me––she had an idea for the new In Dance monthly... read more
Conference Catalog
Crossed Stars
Artistic Sources and Social Conflict in the Ballet ‘Romeo and Juliet’
Edited by Rita Felciano and Eric Hellman, 1994, San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum
Revised and edited proceedings from a Conference sponsored by the Dance Critics Association, March 11–12, 1994, San Francisco. Available to borrow from the Internet Archive.
“Rita Felciano's voice is an absolute gift, both to the local SF/Bay Area dance scene and to the larger performing arts community. Always articulate and knowledgeable, her writing also reflects a rare and deep level of discernment.”
—Heather Desaulniers, dance writer and critic
30 YEARS: The Dance Community’s Reflections on Rita Felciano, December 1, 2014, IN DANCE