Sonia Destri Lie

Sonia Destri Lie is a Brazilian choreographer and artistic director who built Companhia Urbana de Dança into an internationally touring ensemble that joins Rio street-dance vocabularies with contemporary composition. Raised in Rio de Janeiro, she trained in ballet and earned degrees in psychology and ballet, later working across dance, theatre, film and musicals in Brazil and Europe. During time in Europe, she encountered hip-hop and b-boying alongside contemporary practice—but the direction of her work shifted decisively when she met Rio street dancers. Her choreography emerged not from transferring fixed vocabularies to the stage, but through exchange with performers who brought their own movement histories.

In 2005, Destri Lie and dancer Tiago Sousa co-founded Companhia Urbana de Dança in Rio as a community-based company. The ensemble recruited dancers with roots in hip-hop, urban dance and Rio's suburbs and favelas, with Destri serving as artistic director and choreographer. Company works are documented as collaborative, so dancers and assistants remain visible in credits.

The company gained international momentum after appearances at the Lyon Dance Biennale in 2006 and 2008. Subsequent touring brought its work to New York City Center, Walker Art Center, Duke and Jacob's Pillow. The company's archive reports that *ID: Entidades* entered a New York Times top-ten list for 2011, and the ensemble received further critical recognition in 2014 when Walker Art Center presented the company and published substantial accounts of Destri Lie's collaborative method.

Destri Lie's work has repeatedly addressed race, poverty, violence and belonging through the specificity of dancers' biographies. Her choreography stretches breaking, popping and floorwork into longer theatrical phrases, where sharp isolations coexist with sustained weight, held stillness and ensemble counterpoint. Individual dancers retain distinct attack even inside group structures. The tension between her own background and those of many company members is central to both the company's artistic history and its editorial responsibility.

The company remained active through the 2020s, with performances and training projects documented in Rio, Miami and Santiago. Her legacy therefore includes not only repertory but a long-running structure for dancers to develop theatrical craft, tour internationally and teach subsequent cohorts.