Sonia Sabri is a multi-award-winning dance artist and choreographer and is Artistic Director of Sonia Sabri Company. She is one of the world’s leading Kathak dancers with an international reputation for collaboration across dance styles and art forms, receiving commissions from the BBC, Channel 4, Tanzhaus, ARTE, Birmingham Hippodrome, South Bank Centre, and London Olympics 2012.
Wolverhampton-born Sonia Sabri is amongst the brightest and most inspirational of British born dancer-choreographers working in the twenty-first century. Sonia has worked as choreographer and movement director with Sir Trevor Nunn, Arlene Philips CBE, Marion Tait CBE., Jonzi D, Richard Alston, Shobana Jeyasingh, Nitin Sawhney, Rose English. Sonia was South Asian Mentor (2015) and choreographer for the finalist (2017) for BBC 4’s Young Dancer. She has recently been appointed a member of the Board of DanceXchange Birmingham.
“I fell in love with Kathak because it had the element of storytelling as well as the fast footwork, geometric patterns, and it allows me to express myself sometimes it is not possible through spoken word,” Sonia told Asian Voice.
She thinks that women can express themselves on subject matters that they may otherwise shy away from. “Kathak enables us to decipher the meaning of life, what it means to exist, what is the responsibility that I have on earth,” she added.
Sonia also said that, “It (dance) enables women and girls to have confidence to get a sense of themselves, understand who they are, to discover themselves as people which perhaps society doesn’t enable us to because we are very early on bound by society about how we should behave.”
When asked about the major takeaway as an artist in the pandemic, she said, “I have seen other people realise how important it is to be creative and how important art is for our emotional mental and physical wellbeing. If we didn’t have art in our life we would not know how to live a cultural way and have a way to find other nodes of expression.”
We asked Sonia about keeping up with the success and challenges that come along in today’s world, considering we still live in a man’s world. She said, “We need to have organisations who are key informers and trend makers, who are part of establishments who recognise that women are in such phenomenal leadership roles that they need to be championed so that there are more women and girls who understand the value of this profession.”
“It’s a fight everyday. I have to always form my ground and stand on it firmly and have an intellectual calm voice amongst all the shouting that happens and the loud voices of men and that’s how they display their power and energy that gets them into the place. I believe that a woman is much more dynamic,” she added.
