Sophie Elizabeth (2003) is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher originally from Utah, USA, and currently based in Zürich, Switzerland. She began her dance training at a young age, dancing and competing across a wide range of styles. At 18, she moved to Switzerland to study Contemporary Dance at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), where she completed her BA in 2025.

During her studies, Sophie worked with choreographers including Nadav Zelner, Luca Signoretti, and Gregor Zöllig, and performed repertoire by artists such as Marco Goecke, Dunja Jocic, Marco Cantalupo, and Katarzyna Gdaniec. She toured in the Netherlands and Germany and explored dance on film through projects in Switzerland and North Macedonia. During her internship year, she worked with Joshua Monten Dance Company in Bern and Amorphous Dance Company in Nice, France, alongside a range of freelance projects.

Since graduating, Sophie has continued to work across performance, choreography, and teaching. She has performed with Friede Dance Company at Kulturhaus Helferei in Zürich and participated in the annual TANZinOlten, performing O embalo, which won the choreographic competition in 2025. She also toured to Skopje, North Macedonia, performing YUGO at the Skopje Dance Festival, and participated in the 2026 Origen Dance Festival in the outdoor production HANNIBAL. As a choreographer, she co-created ROZE with Stefanie Pechtl for the BA Contemporary Dance students at ZHdK. Her choreographic work has been recognized with awards including 1st Place at Salt Contemporary Dance’s Shape Choreography Festival, Best Choreography at the Universal Ballet Competition, and 2nd Place at Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP).

Teaching and coaching are an increasingly central part of Sophie’s practice. She has taught at Tanzhaus Bern and ZHdK, collaborated with HEAD Genève during her Master’s studies, and currently teaches at the School of the Zurich Opera House (Opernhaus Zürich). Her teaching is informed by her background in competitive dance and her contemporary training in Switzerland, with an interest in developing dancers with technical and creative autonomy.

Sophie is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at Zurich University of the Arts, specializing in teaching and rehearsing dance professionals. Alongside her studies, she continues to freelance as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, working across Switzerland and internationally.

Her artistic practice brings together the precision, versatility, and choreographic sensibilities developed through her early competitive training with the diverse contemporary approaches she has encountered throughout her professional career in Europe. She is passionate about creating spaces in which dancers can improve through collaborative based training and positively framed challenges, while continuing to challenge herself artistically and expand her practice as a performer, choreographer, and educator.