Many of the Vancouverites hitting the road south to Bumbershoot this weekend (September 5 to 7) in Seattle will be heading there for the bands. But what many won’t realize is that the fest located around Seattle Center under the Space Needle is a mecca of new dance and visual art as well.

“A lot of people don’t know Bumbershoot started as an arts festival [in 1971],” Chris Weber, Bumbershoot’s programming manager and visual-arts curator, told the Straight. “It has always been at least half art, but that’s been all the different disciplines, film, theatre, dance, visual arts.”

This year, Bumbershoot is bringing back dance programming for the first time in a few years. On the roster is, similar to the music programming, the gamut of emerging and established artists.

Check out the Reign Supreme Breakin’ Competition and Street Dance Showcase, featuring B-boys and -girls from around the world. At the same Pavilion Stage, MaximumVELOCITY takes the pulse of Seattle’s celebrated contemporary-dance scene, with an array of names like Kate Wallich, Kim Lusk, and Anna Conner +Co.

Bumbershoot is also continuing its tradition of holding indoor art exhibits—a feature that sets it apart from other big summer festivals, which usually relegate their art to outdoor murals and installations. Look for Between Garage & Grunge: Glitter, Glam and Proto-Punk in Seattle’s Subversive ‘70s, a show of posters, zines, photos, and more; and the city-to-city collaboration called The Seattle Havana Tehran Poster Show, pop-culture-charged works that sit in trios that show a similar zeitgeist in each metropolis. Outside, check out the Street Art Popup, where artists like 179, Charms, and Q.Quigg create work that interprets the vibe of Bumbershoot each day.

“We very much have a general audience, and we always have, and it’s important for us to create new and stronger arts audiences,” Weber said. “We’ve always thought of it as a discovery festival.” He explains even if you are headed to Bumbershoot mostly for the bands, “we hope you’ll find something you like that you never knew you’d like. So you can say, ‘Oh, dance isn’t stupid,’ or ‘Poetry isn’t boring,’ or ‘Visual art is different than what I thought it was.’ Then, hopefully, you’ll go to a museum or a theatre later on.”