The Kentucky Dance Festival is the first and only professional contemporary dance festival in the Bluegrass. This three-day festival shares the artistic voices of creators across the entire state, plus guest choreographers from surrounding states across the South and Midwestern regions. 

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Since 2021, Ambo Dance Theatre has been hosting the Kentucky NACHMO Dance Festival, a dance festival in partnership with the National Choreography Month (NACHMO) organization. In 2025, the Kentucky NACHMO Dance Festival experienced a 46% growth, featuring 121 performers from 12 groups and doubling our audience engagement. While the consistent growth of this small, local festival highlighted the demand and interest for high-quality, accessible contemporary dance experiences, the NACHMO format wasn’t always accessible for under-resourced groups. Thus, Ambo Dance Theatre split NACHMO into its own event while launching the Kentucky Dance Festival as a larger, more accessible statewide and national platform.
 

The Kentucky Dance Festival is open to all styles and forms of dance and any kind of choreographic processes. Creators are invited to apply to present works that are fully developed and completed, as well as works in progress that are looking to make their stage debut.​​