SEAD Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance is a training center for contemporary dancers and choreographers and was founded in 1993 by Susan Quinn. Coupled with the professional training company, SEAD is also a year-round production and event venue for contemporary dance and performance art. The dance academy and its international students enrich the cultural offer of the city of Salzburg with numerous events, in-house productions, guest events and guest performances.

Today, SEAD is a well-known academy with more than 100 international students from over 30 countries who can attend different educational programs: the four-year undergraduate-program, the one-year postgraduate-programs for choreographers (I.C.E.) and training programmes for dancers (FIRE year, MoveMentors Dance Intensive Workshops).

SEAD is a meeting point for experimental collaborations, residencies, and performances. As a cultural space open for the general public SEAD offers an educational program for adults, teens and kids, and organizes various events in the field of contemporary dance and performance art which enriches the cultural scene in Salzburg.

Since 2008, SEAD is home-base and residency for the internationally touring repertory-company BODHI PROJECT, since 2018 part of the blackmountain non-profit organization.

Susan Quinn is founder and artistic director of SEAD - Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. In 1981, after graduation from New York University in Fine Arts in Dance she joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for seven years as a dancer. She continued her exemplary career to dance in New York City and abroad with various choreographers, while deepening her interest in the study of choreography and teaching technique and composition. After more than ten years working as a dancer and teacher in the USA and Europe, she moved to Salzburg in the early ’90s and founded SEAD. From 1991 to 2006 she created pieces for her own company, the Susan Quinn Dance Company. In 2012 Susan was awarded a Merce Cunningham Fellowship by the Merce Cunningham Trust.

Susan is a founding member of the platform tanz_house Salzburg, taught Contemporary Dance and Composition at the University Mozarteum Salzburg from 1991 until 2013, and was a member of the Regional Council for the Arts in Salzburg from 2001 to 2004. In 2008, Susan founded the touring company BODHI PROJECT. In addition she is initiator and curator of several festivals and performance series for contemporary dance. The City of Salzburg honoured Susan Quinn in 2016 with the International Award of Arts and Culture. In 2021 she founded the cultural center SQFARM. Fallbach Art Research Movement as a meeting place for artists in residence and people from the surrounding area in Anger (Upper Bavaria). Recently, Susan Quinn was awarded the Gertraud Ruckser-Giebisch-Prize of the Cultural Foundation 'Pro Salzburg' for her life's work.