RECENT: Director/Choreographer (New West Ballet, First Year), Dance Captain (Teatro San Diego, Broadway, The Wiz), Director (Renversé Ballet).
PRE-PROFESSIONAL TRAINING: Steffi began dancing at seven, and by seventeen had become a principal artist for the Southern California Ballet. Steffi's rigorous pre-professional training spanned classical and contemporary ballet, pointe, pas de deux, jazz, modern, character, hip-hop, and tap. Formative teachers include Margaret Swarthout (Royal Ballet), Ahita Ardalan (Paris Opera Ballet), Lynn Cox (Atlanta Ballet), and Erin Derstine (Hubbard Street Dance Chicago). Before attending university, Steffi represented the United States in the Cecchetti International Classical Ballet Competition (2008).
EDUCATION: Steffi earned Honors in the Cecchetti Method of Ballet exams (Grade II - Adv II), and became a certified ballet instructor at 17yoa. Having always been a bookish dancer, Steffi graduated from the University of Chicago (Political Science) while serving as Head of Teaching for UBallet, choreographer for UTheater, and featured performer throughout campus and Chicago.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: After several seasons as a soloist in San Diego, Portland, and Chicago, Steffi began freelancing principal roles abroad in London, Amsterdam, and Dublin. Recent international principal roles include: Odette (Swan Lake), Gamzatti (La Bayadere), Kitri (Don Quixote), and Myrtha (Giselle). Recent domestic principal roles include: Sugar Plum Fairy and Snow Queen (The Nutcracker), Odile (Swan Lake), and soloist (Paquita and Les Patineurs). Prior to shelter-in-place orders (COVID-19), Steffi began rehearsing for La Bayadere and Romeo & Juliet (United States, 2020). Steffi has been featured in original choreography by Arturo Fernandez (LINES Ballet), Luis Martinez (Joffrey Ballet), Drew Jacoby (Netherlands Dance Theatre), Jessica Miller Tomlinson (Thodos Dance Chicago), and originated the Maghreb Queen in The Seven Beauties (US Premier). Steffi continues to enjoy freelance, multi-industry works domestically and abroad.
ACADEMIC RESEARCH: Steffi was accepted into a masters programme at the University of Roehampton (London, Dance Politics + Sociology), and is currently proposing experimental research artist-protecting alternatives to the traditional ballet company structure. Steffi's existing research and lectures examine ballet pedagogy reform, dance sociology, dance within power structures, gender politics, and economic inequality in the performing arts.
ARTISTIC RESEARCH: As director/choreographer, Steffi created a wizarding-world-inspired ballet (First Year), to include costuming, stage design, set design, prop creation, budgeting, fundraising, and experimental simulation of an alternative company structure. As a resident choreographer (Dance Ireland), Steffi created Just Another Day, an original short-form ballet challenging classical ballet norms, which was restaged on an international team of dancers (Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin). While in Ireland, Steffi was selected by Wicklow Screendance Lab for screendance/live movement research.