Program areas at Sundance Association for Country Western Dancing
Sundance Saloon. Twice-weekly dance lessons and open country-western dancing featuring a variety of dance forms including two-step, waltz, east coast swing, west coast swing, line dancing, and more. These events take place in a club setting and are open to the general public, with typically 60 attendees on a Thursday, and 120 on a Sunday. Dance lessons typically take place in multiple rooms, allowing for beginning and advanced level lessons simultaneously. Sundance Saloon caters to the LGBT+ community and its friends. Attendees are incredibly diverse, with ages ranging from 20s to 70s, men and women and nonbinary, cis and trans, gay and straight, all races and ethnicities, and all socioeconomic levels, mixing together easily and freely. Sundance Saloon offers a safe haven for older attendees (as well as younger attendees), folks in recovery, financially-challenged individuals, those struggling with isolation, and those needing a place for solace and renewal to help cope with life's challenges.
Special Events. The Sundance Association presents numerous additional special events in San Francisco, expanding its reach to the greater LGBT+ community and its friends. In 2022 we held large country-western dances with lessons at large outdoor festivals including San Francisco Pride and the Castro Street Fair, free to the public. Our additional exposure to the general public from these events numbered in the thousands. In addition, we produced an additional indoor event during the San Francisco Pride weekend, with 150 in attendance, and an outdoor event called "Sundance In The Park" at Stern Grove in San Francisco, with 60 in attendance.
The Sundance Stompede. Our annual four-day country-western dance convention featuring four nights of large-scale dances and three days of educational dance workshops. Dance lessons take place in up to six rooms simultaneously, offering an incomparable depth and breadth of dance styles, including two-step, waltz, east coast swing, west coast swing, line dancing, and more, for all levels, beginning to advanced. We typically attract about 700 participants (but in 2022 attendance was less than 500 due to the Covid-19 pandemic), half from the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and half from all over the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. The Sundance Stompede is the largest and most respected event of its kind in the world. The Sundance Stompede serves to bring a global community together, and has been a prime factor in spreading our culture of inclusiveness and welcoming around the world. The Sundance Stompede also helps to raise funds for other LGBT-focused nonprofit organizations.
Community Support. We offer small grants to like-minded 501c3 nonprofit organizations that produce country-western dance opportunities for the LGBT+ community. In 2022 we allocated $250 grants to: Wranglers Los Angeles Dance Association, 1234 Havenhurst Drive Suite 11, West Hollywood, CA, 90046. EIN 82-1908766.
General Program Service Expenses. This amount ($16,000) represents program service expenses not specifically tied to one specific program, but that support multiple or all of our programs.