Happy Pride Month from Rae Studios! | Featured Instructors and LGBTQIA+ Trailblazers
- raestudiossf
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 13 hours ago
Happy Pride Month from Rae Studios!
In honor of Pride Month, we are highlighting some of our instructors who are apart of the LGBTQIA+ community. Read some of their stories of how their artistry has affected their identity and resources to educate others on their community. As we near the end of Pride Month, we are excited to celebrate with you all! Check us out next Wednesday for a Pride Party! This will include snacks, highlighting LGBTQIA+ Dance trailblazers, as well as our scheduled group classes. Come in your favorite Pride color: whether it's something that you love to see yourself in or something that best represents your identity. Come join the fun through dance and community, we hope to see you then!
EVENT DETAILS:
FEATURED INSTRUCTORS:
ANNA BOLENDER | @annaalexbee
FLORENCE WANG | @_florencewang
JAMES JARED | @jams_jard
JACKSON TRAN | @jxtrxn
KYLIE IRELAND | @kyliecircus
MAHIRO O'HARU | @mahioharu
OCHE VALLEJOS | @_oche13
OLIVIA PIPER | @analyze.release.create
SARA TEMPLETON | @coquisf
Date: Wednesday, June 25th 2025
Time: 4:30pm-9:00pm
Tickets: $25/Single Class
Location: 414 Mason St. | Rae Studios
Come back to this blog as we go through our Pride Week (Monday, June 23rd - Sunday, June 29th) and add a LGBTQIA+ Dance Trailblazer and highlight their impact on the arts!
Sign up through the Mindbody App. 
Diamond Jarrell
(She/Her)
As a trans woman, life sometimes feels like an out of body experience. Comfort in and of itself is a journey trying to grasp and build in myself. Since I started my dance journey over 4 years ago, dance has helped me to find home and safety within my body. Dance has allowed me to explore the most feminine parts of myself as well as challenging my understanding of gender norms and body positivity in dance spaces. As someone who often feels left out or like a black sheep, dance is where I find connections. Dance is where I've been community and oftentimes have felt the most acceptance from the people around. My goal as a queer, black-woman in dance is to continue to break barriers and open up space for folks that look like me and share similar experiences. Dance is about freedom, self expression and breaking the mold of who you think you are. I strive to express those same sentiments whenever I hit the floor and most especially when I teach class.
Diamond teaches DRENCHED! every Saturday at 10am in-studio and every Tuesday at 6pm UN Plaza.
Sign up through the Mindbody App. 
Jackson Tran
(He/Him)
Dance has been a huge part of how I’ve grown into myself—not just as a gay-identifying male, but as someone challenging the idea that movement has to look a certain way. There’s often this stereotype in dance that equates expression, softness, or fluidity with femininity, and that femininity is somehow “less than.” As someone who doesn’t always fit into traditional ideas of masculinity, I’ve felt the tension of that. But instead of running from it, dance gave me chance to embrace it.
There were moments where I held back, afraid of being “too much” or not masculine enough. But over time, I realized that the way I move is valid, powerful, and honest. Dance helped me stop shrinking parts of myself to fit in. Now, I don’t think twice about showing up fully as I am—feminine, masculine, both, neither—just me.
Jackson teaches K-Pop Tuesdays at 5:30pm in-studio and every 3rd Thursday at Mission Rock. He also teaches Jazz Funk Tuesdays at 6:30pm and Saturdays at 11am in-studio.
Kait Skye
(she/they)
identity:
Dance has always been the place where I felt most like me - even before I understood who that was. It’s been a safe container to explore gender, joy, grief, and queerness with my whole body.
community:
Queer culture is the blueprint! From the ballroom and house parties to the studio, the stage, and legacies of pioneers like Alvin Ailey, queerness has always shaped what’s possible in dance. As a choreographer and educator, I carry that lineage into every room I enter. I want my dancers to feel seen, supported, and celebrated.
rolemodels:
There are so many. But a few who have truly shaped me: Annie Franklin, who reminds me that leadership can be quiet, powerful, and deeply human. Kris Rhodes, who has shown me what it means to take up space with pride and precision. And my first generations of students, at Mohler, who showed me how the environment of dance education is so much more than dancing.
resources:
Watch Paris Is Burning. Then watch POSE or Danced Out. Do your homework: Sean Dorsey, Archie Burnett, Josephine Baker, Merce Cunningham, Jayna Ledford, Katy Pyle, Willi Ninja, Jin Xing, and so many more. Follow queer creators online, prioritize classes led by queer artists. Buy tickets to a drag show or performance. Queer stories live in movement - go witness them.
Kait teaches Jumps and Turns at 4:30pm and Contemporary at 5:30pm in-studio every Thursday.
Sign up through the Mindbody App. 
Tashi Cowan
(she/her)
How has dance impacted your experience or identity?
Dance has always been a space where I could explore my full self—emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It’s helped me reconnect with my body during times I felt disconnected or unseen. As a biracial Black woman and a queer person, movement has been a language of freedom, allowing me to process identity, claim joy, and express stories that words can’t always hold. Dance gave me community, confidence, and clarity.
How does the LGBTQ+ community influence your artistry as a choreographer/instructor?
The LGBTQ+ community constantly reminds me that art is resistance, celebration, and connection all at once. Queer creativity pushes boundaries—stylistically and emotionally—which influences how I choreograph and how I show up for students. I try to cultivate a space where people feel safe to be bold, messy, fluid, and honest in their movement. Queer joy, especially, inspires how I teach: with intention, care, and celebration.
Who are your role models in the LGBTQ+ community?
Some of my biggest inspirations include Alok Vaid-Menon, for their unapologetic truth and poetic wisdom, and Big Freedia, who reminds us that liberation can look like owning the stage with fierceness and power. I’m also endlessly inspired by the queer elders and community organizers who paved the way quietly—those who created art and space when it wasn’t safe to do so.
What resources or voices do you recommend for someone trying to understand LGBTQ+ experiences?
Start with listening. Read books like All About Love by bell hooks and The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam. Follow creators like @alokvmenon, @thejeffreymarsh, and @ernestowilkins. Watch documentaries like Paris Is Burning or Disclosure for historical and cultural context. And more than anything—be present in real conversations. LGBTQ+ experiences are not monolithic, and the best way to understand is to witness people in their full complexity.
Tashi teaches Jazz Funk in-studio on Mondays at 5:30pm and Beginner Hip Hop in-studio on Tuesdays at 4:30pm and Fridays at 5:30pm. Tashi also teaches Hip Hop: Grooves at Union Square every 3rd Thursday of the month.
Sign up through the Mindbody App. Honorary Mention:
Ava Apple
(she/her)
Ava does not identify as part of the LGBT+ community, but has made a significant difference in the Salsa scene. Ava was the first teacher to hold "Same Sex Salsa" classes in SF during the mid to late 1990s. Classes, workshops, and socials were held at the historic Jon Sims Center, and the Metronome Ballroom. Ava was also one of the first dance team directors in the Salsa community to feature female leaders on her dance teams, in the late 90s. "I first started teaching partner dance in 1979. What brought me to teaching these classes was no one else was doing them, there seemed to be a need and a desire, and I grew up in San Francisco with a very progressive upbringing.
To me partner dancing was/is about dancing with another person - one leads, one follows.
What gender they are is not a factor."
Ava teaches Salsa Level 1 on Thursdays at 6:30pm.
Sign up through the Mindbody App. LGBT+ Trailblazers in Dance
Paris Dupree (1950-2011)
Voguing
Dupree was born in 1950 and grew up in Philadelphia before making it big in New York City. In the past she has stated that the balls started in Harlem when she was coming up in the 1970s, and that she started the very first Brooklyn-based house - at the time known as The Brooklyn Ladies - in 1978. Over time, that house split up into several other houses including the House of Dupree - where she gets her name - the House of Ebony, and the House of Revlon. Being not only the mother of the house of Dupree, but the mother to the umbrella of Brooklyn houses, she was known as the Mother’s Mother.
According to ball legend, another significant mark made by miss Dupree was the moment she brought voguing onto the scene. During a night out at an East Village after-hours club called Footsteps, Dupree was amidst a group of queens throwing shade at one another. She decided to cleverly take things to the next level by grabbing the copy of Vogue magazine that was in her bag, opening it to a page with a particularly eye-catching pose, and mimicking the position, as a way to show off and subtly throw shade at her rivals. As she flipped the pages of the magazine, she mimicked the different poses she saw, matching up her movements with the beat of the music playing. At this point, another queen joined her trying to one-up her pose, to which Dupree responded with another on-beat pose.
According to DJ David Depino of the house of Xtravaganza, this competitive style of throwing shade at one another was at first simply called posing, however over time it became known as voguing, named after the magazine from which many of the poses originated.
Come back to this blog as we go through our Pride Week (Monday, June 23rd - Sunday, June 29th) and add a LGBTQIA+ Dance Trailblazer and highlight their impact on the arts!
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