Velocity Dance Center

About SFDI

Since 1994, the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI), an annual weeklong summer dance festival, has presented the best in improvisational dance and related fields. SFDI features classes, performances, jams, and discussions with the most innovative and respected locally and internationally recognized dance artists.

It is in great part because of SFDI that Seattle has gained and maintained its reputation as a hotbed for the study, practice, and appreciation of dance. The community and momentum created during the festival is felt long after the week is over. SFDI inspires and invigorates the local dance scene, inspiring other events and collaborations, and attracting dancers and other artists to the area. SFDI brings together many of the most important dance artists of our time in a major arts event encouraging collaboration, community, opportunity, and education.

SFDI takes place in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Classes, jams, and discussions are held at Velocity Dance Center and Century Ballroom; performances are at Broadway Performance Hall. The neighborhood buzzes with nine classes a day in three studios plus events each evening.

Daily classes include dance technique, improvisation, performance skills, contact improvisation, somatics and more. Two nights feature the faculty performance and the student performance (organized by the students themselves, giving them experience in both the technical and artistic aspects of concert production). Evenings also include dance jams, in which students and teachers improvise together, and a faculty round-table discussion on current local and global dance community concerns. Lunchtimes offer video presentations, bodywork sessions, rehearsals, performance discussions and networking opportunities.

SFDI faculty teach and perform worldwide; many are college/university faculty. See a list of past faculty. For many students, SFDI is the only opportunity to study with these renowned artists.

Classes offered have included Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, Composition, Skinner Releasing Technique^tm, Feldenkrais, Writing, Performance, Funk, Butoh, Body-Mind Centering, Contemporary Dance Technique, Voice, Solo and Group Improvisation, Yoga, Contemplative Dance, Alexander Technique, Thai Massage, martial arts, and more.

Since 1994 the faculty performances have been the Northwest’s only consistent, professional New Dance performance forum, featuring the latest developments in contemporary dance and improvisation. It exposes audiences to some of the most important artists in the field, rarely presented here, while providing fertile ground for collaboration amongst these artists.

SFDI welcomes all skill levels, from beginners to professionals. We encourage participants of all abilities, and have offered classes focused specifically on dancing with disabilities. Our work/study program offers low-income students the opportunity to participate while learning valuable skills such as technical theater production, facilities maintenance, and event organization.

In 2011, after 18 successful years, Dance Art Group (DAG) announced it is handing over production of its world-renowned Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (SFDI) to Velocity Dance Center.