Sonya Tayeh is a dance teacher and jazz and contemporary choreographer from
Detroit, Michigan best known for being a choreographer on the television series
So You Think You Can Dance. In 2013, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for her
work on season nine. Tayeh was a house dancer during her
teenage years and she did not start any formal dance training until she was 18
and a student at Wayne State University. After graduating in 2002, she moved to
California and ran a dance company in San Francisco where she developed her
own style of choreography which she calls combat jazz. In 2007, she was
discovered by a talent agent from McDonald Selznick Associates who saw a
performance she choreographed for The Carnival: Choreographer’s Ball. Three
months after being signed, she booked a job on So You Think You Can Dance.
Since gaining mainstream exposure, Tayeh has choreographed for Madonna, Florence
and the Machine, Kylie Minogue, the Los Angeles Ballet, Martha Graham Dance
Company and the San Jose Repertory Theater. Aside from theater and tours,
she stays active teaching jazz and contemporary classes at dance
conventions. Life and career
= Early life and education= Tayeh was born in Brooklyn, New York and
raised in Detroit, Michigan. She has two sisters and one half-brother. Tayeh
started dancing at age 15 when she began frequenting hip-hop and house dance
parties with her sister. She started studying ballet and modern dance—as a
subject—at age 17 when she was a student at Henry Ford Community College.
Although Tayeh was a freestyle house dancer in her youth, she didn't take any
formal dance classes until she was 18 and a student Wayne State University.
Before starting her training, she was denied by six dance studios who wouldn't
let her take classes because they felt she was too old. In addition to her
classes, Tayeh was a member of Counter Groove and Full Circle dance companies.
During her time at Wayne State, Tayeh drew on dance history, anatomy, and
performance to develop a style that is built on core strength, aggressive
partner interaction, and quirky, stylized movements. She graduated Wayne
State in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in Dance.
= Dance career and mainstream exposure= Tayeh honed her style of combat jazz
over the course of four years while co-directing The Dance Company of San
Francisco with her friend and colleague Chris Jacobsen. An alumnus of The Dance
Company of San Francisco is Nick Lazzarini who won the first season of So
You Think You Can Dance. When the company closed in 2007, Tayeh moved to
Los Angeles and started a dance company called Tayeh Dance. In an interview with
Dance Spirit magazine she stated that she named the company in honor of her
father who died when she was young. In Los Angeles, she was discovered by
talent agent Andrew Jacobs from McDonald Selznick Associates. Jacobs saw a
performance that Tayeh choreographed at The Carnival: Choreographer’s Ball.
After he approached her, Tayeh invited him and the rest of the MSA staff to see
"The Root of Me"—a show she directed and choreographed that the Carnival
performance was taken from. The day after the viewing, Tayeh was signed to
MSA. Three months after being signed, she was booked as a choreographer for So
You Think You Can Dance. Since gaining mainstream exposure, Tayeh
has choreographed tours and/or live events for Madonna, Florence and the
Machine, Kylie Minogue, Kerli, and Miley Cyrus. She has also choreographed for
Steed Lord and spent three years in residence with the Los Angeles Ballet.
In 2010, she choreographed indie singer Lucy Schwartz' music video "Graveyard".
Tayeh choreographed the rock musical The Last Goodbye which is based on Romeo and
Juliet and set to a soundtrack of music by Jeff Buckley. It premiered in 2010,
but a revised version of the show with a new cast opened in September 2013 at the
Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California. In 2011, she choreographed
another musical called Spring Awakening for the San Jose Reparatory Theater. In
2014, she choreographed an off-Broadway play based on Bruce Lee's life called
Kung Fu. It premiered February 24 with So You Think You Can Dance alumnus Cole
Horibe playing the lead role. In 2015 Martha Graham Dance Company
commissioned a new work by Sonya Tayeh which she set to the music of Meredith
Monk. It premiered in the company's New York season at The Joyce, Spring 2015
and has been performed by the company while on tour.
Choreography for So You Think You Can Dance
= Teaching= Tayeh is a faculty member at the Edge
Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles. She has also taught classes at The Hip
Drop Dance Complex, Monsters of Contemporary, Broadway Dance Center, 24
Seven Dance, Hall of Fame Dance Challenge, Loyola Marymount University,
NUVO, and Spotlight Dance Works. Style and influences
Tayeh describes her choreography style as combat jazz because in her words
"[i]t’s staccato, aggressive, and engaged, even when it’s slow."
SanJose.com characterized it as "fearless, provocative and unique." She
has several influences which include two of her former college professors Diane
Mancinelli and Erica Wilson-Perkins, Broadway choreographers Twyla Tharp and
Bill T. Jones, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, her favorite choreographer Jiří
Kylián, and her family. In addition, she calls competitive hip-hop dancer Salah
her "idol" and Icelandic singer Björk her "ultimate hero".
Awards and recognition In January 2009, Tayeh was named one of
Dance magazine's "25 to Watch". In 2010, she was honored by the Detroit Arts
Council and she made the December cover of Dance Teacher magazine. At Wayne
State University there is a scholarship named after her called the Sonya Tayeh
Endowment Fund that is awarded to students who want to pursue a degree in
dance. In July 2013, Tayeh was nominated for an
Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography for "Possibly Maybe", "Turning Page",
and "Sail"—three routines she choreographed on season nine of So You
Think You Can Dance. At the 2013 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, she
joined the other seven choreography nominees and created a routine honoring
dance that was performed just before the Outstanding Choreography award was
presented. 2013 was the first year the Outstanding Choreography award was
presented at the Primetime Emmys telecast rather than at the Creative
Arts Emmys ceremony which takes place a week prior.
References