Community Jazz Dance Festival

The SSU Community Jazz Dance Festival is a vibrant weeklong event taking place April 30 – May 4, 2025, at Sonoma State University. This festival celebrates the roots, evolution, and cultural significance of jazz dance with a powerful blend of film, workshops, and live performances. It opens with a free screening of the award-winning documentary Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance, which uncovers the often-overlooked African American lineage of jazz and sparks critical conversations around appropriation, representation, and cultural legacy.

Festival workshops feature internationally renowned artists Laura Ann Smyth and Sekou McMiller. Smyth, a PhD candidate and dance educator, brings contemporary jazz to life through musicality, storytelling, and technical depth. McMiller, known for his explosive Afro Latin jazz fusion style, has choreographed for artists like Madonna and Pitbull and teaches at top institutions including The Ailey School and Broadway Dance Center.

The festival culminates in four days of live performances at the Evert B. Person Theatre, showcasing SSU students, the SSU Sapphires, SRJC dancers, and the California Dance Education Association (Saturday only). These performances honor the African Diasporic roots of jazz dance while spotlighting the dynamic contributions of today’s artists.

Through movement, history, and dialogue, the SSU Community Jazz Dance Festival offers more than entertainment—it’s a reclaiming of jazz dance’s origins, a celebration of its diversity, and an invitation to connect through culture and community.