Sonia Dawkins, founder, and artistic director of SD/Prism Dance Theatre, is a graduate of The University of the Arts and earned a Master’s in Dance/Kinesiology & Choreography from SUNY Brockport. A faculty member at Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle (the first African American female teacher, 12 ½ years) and Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C(3 years), she has also been an Artist-in Residence at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre School; University of North Carolina School of the Arts; University of Oklahoma; Cincinnati Ballet School; and Jones-Haywood Dance School.

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Ms. Dawkins has performed extensively with choreographers and companies in the United States and the National
Dance Company of Jamaica. Her national and international choreography credits include: Village Theatre (Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; My Heart is a Drum); Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Goodman
Theatre (Pullman Porter Blues); Seattle Repertory Theatre (Three Musketeers, Brother Size, The Breach); Seattle
Children’s Theatre; Pacific Northwest Ballet; Nevada Ballet; Seattle Theatre Group (Dance This); and Broadway
Bound (13 the Musical, Bye Bye Birdie, God Lives in Glass). She choreographed her dancers to perform at the Iliev
Foundation at the Bulgaria Dance Festival and the Mexican International Festival. At Jacob’s Pillow Dance
Festival, she choreographed and coached winning participants in the Youth Grand Prix and the Young Arts
Recognition. SD/Prism has presented workshops at dance schools in Barcelona, 2017-2019 and at Studio Harmonica
in France, 2017. In 2019, she served as a Judge for the World Cup Dance Competition.

Ms. Dawkins has received the Gypsy Rose Lee Award for choreography for Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time, 2019; Brother Size, 2011; and was nominated for the same award for Pullman Porter blues, 2012. A
recipient of the New Directors Choreography Lab from Alvin Ailey American Dance Foundation, she has also been
selected to present a new musical at the New York Theatre Barn. She has served on the faculty of Ballet Academy
East, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet summer intensives, as choreographer and faculty at SLK Ballet, and is very
honored to have choreographed an excerpt of the world premier ballet on PHILADANCO, Pieces of My Heart,
based on unpublished poetry by August Wilson. Ms. Dawkins has produced a film called “BLUEPRINT” and is
currently working on another short film for 2024. Sonia Dawkins, nominated and won Suzi Bass Award for her
choreography “The Boy Who Kissed The Sky.

Most recently, during the summer of 2022, Ms. Dawkins choreographed and directed the premier production of
Pieces of My Heart as the inaugural artist in residence at the Des Moines Performing Arts Center; served her 3 rd as
faculty and choreographer for the Oklahoma Dance Festival; and presented workshops and choreographed for Lynch
Dance Institute, San Diego. Currently, she serves on the Dance on Camera Board; is a member of the Stage
Directors, Choreographers Society; choreographs at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre School/Fordham
University. Recently she remounted the choreography for the Boy Who Kissed the Sky at the Alliance Theare that
premiered in Seattle Children’s Theatre. This is Sonia Dawkins’ first year at Baltimore School of the Arts as a part-
time teacher.