Born in Nice, France, where she studied at the Académie de Dance, Sofiane danced as a leading artist with Germany’s Karlsruhe Stadttheater, Dutch National Ballet, and New York City Ballet prior to performing with San Francisco Ballet as a guest artist in 2007 and joining the Company as a principal dancer in 2008.

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Before coming to San Francisco, Sofiane’s repertoire was already dominated by a wide range of full-evening and shorter works (creations and premieres) by many of international ballet’s master choreographers such a Sir Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, David Dawson, Wayne Eagling, Jorma Elo, William Forsythe, Rudi van Dantzig, Natalia Makarova, Hans van Manen, Peter Martins, Wayne McGregor, Alexei Ratmansky, Jerome Robbins, Susan Stroman, Glen Tetley, and Christopher Wheeldon.

Now with San Francisco Ballet, Sofiane continues to dance principal roles in much of the company’s repertory – which includes work from the aforementioned masters and is augmented with the work of Val Caniparoli, Edward Liang, Serge Lifar, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Hans van Manen, Wayne McGregor, Mark Morris, Rudolph Nureyev, Yuri Possokhov, Helgi Tomasson, Paul Taylor, Antony Tudor, and Renato Zanella. Over the years many of these choreographers have created roles for Sofiane.

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As a guest artist she has appeared with numerous international companies, most recently in 2015 at the Premio Danza & Danza Gala in Brescia, Italy, in 2012 at the Chicago Dancing Festival and at The Australian Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Gala in Sydney, and in 2011 for Dutch National Ballet’s 50th anniversary. Sofiane was featured in the role of Lady Capulet in the 2015 film of Helgi Tomasson’s Romeo & Juliet as part of the inaugural season of “Lincoln Center at the Movies: Great American Dance.” She is currently principal guest faculty with San Francisco Ballet School, guest faculty at the Alvin Ailey Extension summer program and with Ballet Society Vancouver. In 2015 Sofiane served as a teacher/coach at the Indianapolis International Ballet Competition in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2011 she received an Isadora Duncan Award for “Individual Outstanding Achievement in Performance” in Balanchine’s Symphony in C, as performed at San Francisco’s Stern Grove Festival.

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