J'AIME March 2021

awards such as The ACTA Award for Best Dancer
2016, The National Indian Arts Award for Dance
2017 and Women in Dance Leadership 2018 Award.
As a freelance dance artist, she also worked for the
BBC.
“The only way to be taken seriously was if you had a
company or an organisation so it felt like that’s what
I needed to do.
“I would have to give full credit to my husband,
Sarvar Sabri. He is a world renowned tabla artist
and composer and comes from a lineage of seven
generations of musicians from India and he said let’s
start a dance and music company.
“Inherently our classical and Indian dance forms are
driven by music, so we wanted to really bring that to
the fore.
“Sonia Sabri Company is a dance and music
company. We wanted to bring both of those assets
into people’s appreciation of the art and once we
started with the company, we began to get invitations
to tour internationally.”
Sonia Sabri Company has collaborated with people
such as Sir Trevor Nunn, Rose English, Lincoln Soni
and Arlene Phillips.
Based in Birmingham, the company has had interest
globally, creating opportunities for people of all ages
and abilities to learn classical, contemporary and
urban dance.
Sonia has developed a distinct style of Urban
Kathak, taking inspiration from people and urban
settings and combining it with traditional dance from
the lands of the Indian subcontinent.
“We are proud to be located in Birmingham but we
do a lot of work outside of Birmingham as well as
internationally, so it’s great to be in the city which
is so diverse, so young, so dynamic and I feel as a
company and as artists and independent artists like
myself we are placing Birmingham on the cultural
map if not on the international map.”
Sonia Sabri company was invited by the
Hippodrome to join its associateship in 2018 and
has since developed and commissioned a new
production, Same Same But Different.
“Same Same But Different is a family show but
catered towards children who are aged five and
over and it looks at the curiosities and the fears they
have of being different. It creatively questions how
Kathak, contemporary, street and hip-hop dance and
physical storytelling can be used to explore themes of
identity, difference and belonging.
“We are looking at the diversity of our society and
how cultural differences make society more valuable
rather than it being seen as something that is
misunderstood.”
The Hippodrome has also supported the music and
dance company in creating short pieces for festivals.
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