Meet Sofia Grille | Dancer and Dance Teacher from Chile

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sofia Grille and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sofia, what role has risk played in your life or career?
For me, choosing to be a dancer in South América it was already a challenge. In our countries it is really hard to have opportunities in a daily basis. There is not much dance jobs, and you have to work really hard just to get regular payment conditions. Because of that, all through all the years that I have been dancing, I have been taking risks in order to get more options to build my career, spending a lot of money traveling, going to the US to take classes and try to build connections, investing in my career and creating Spaces and events for dancers in my country. Thanks to that, I have been able to teach abroad, danced in international festivals and now I can actually choose to take my biggest risk and build a career outside my country.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I started at 12 years old thanks to my mom, who thought it would be a good way to relieve stress.
What she didn’t imagine was that I would never stop dancing. Despite excelling
academically in math and attending a prestigious school in Chile, where a traditional career path was
expected, dance won my heart. I was 16, training in hip hop and street styles, dancing and working with my crew, traveling to Argentina and Brasil to do shows and dance competitions, and I knew that dance would be the career I wanted to pursue, even though I knew studying a traditional career would the “best” option according to everyone else.
I decided to follow my heart and keep studiyng dance, but I didn’t have the money to study a dance career in college. So when I was 18, I started working night shifts in McDonalds, while I was teaching 13 classes per week, including Basic Hip Hop Classes, Classes for kids and fitness classes, because I wanted to go to Los Angeles for 3 months to train there, it was my dream.
At 19 I got to Los Angeles and I completely fell in love with the city. For me it was everything that I wanted, i felt challenged and comfortable at the same time, I made a lot of friends that are my family right now and I got to connect with dancers that I have always admire.
Since that, I have worked all this years to keep chasing my dreams, I want to be able to travel the world with my art, dancing in big stages and teaching and sharing my dance with others around all the world.
The most notable difference between Chile and countries like the United States, lies in the number and quality of opportunities. While abroad, dancers enjoy better pay and
productions, the industry in Chile is smaller and faces a lot of challenges. Despite the limitations, in Chile, we are
intense and disciplined, always ready to shine when opportunities arise, that latin fire is the thing I love the most about our community.
Being part of D-Zone and my other group Las Players (wich is a dance company I have with my best friends, professional dancers) has been crucial to my development as a dancer and female leader. With Las Players we have worked with international Reggaeton artists such as Justin Quiles, Brytiago and De La Ghetto, always making the collective effort to elevate the professionalism in our work. In D-Zone, we earned a place in hip-hop, facing a male-dominated environment. Both groups represent female power at its peak.

One of the goals that I am most proud of, it is teaching abroad. I was able to go to Peru an Mexico to teach, and seing a venue full of dancers dancing my choreography, and wanting to learn from me, it’s one of the greatest gifts ever.

My journey haven’t been easy, I have dealed with a lot of rejection and closed doors, a lot of times I have felt like it is too difficult, but at the same time, I love dancing so much that I would never think of quitting.

I think one of the biggest lesson for me, is understanding that life has led me to where I am now, and evertything I have experienced before, has builded my strenght, passion and resilience, that it’s crutial to succeed in an art career, and I feel more prepared than ever to achieve my goals. We must keep dreaming, but also enjoy the present to the fullest. Also that the biggest blessing of dance, it’s the connections that we do with other people. thanks to it, I have friends around the world, that I got the pleassure to call family.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I had the pleassure to visit Los Angeles 3 times, the first one it was in 2017 for three months, the second one in 2020 for three months , and the last one in 2024 for almost 4 months. I love Los Angeles and my favorite spots are for sure, Echo Park, taking a ride with the ducks in the lake. Griffith observatory it is an amazing place to walk around, learning and having a chill afternoon, while seeing the sunset in those amazing views. The grove it is a must to everytime I’m there. I used to go a lot to venice beach in the weekends, but when I met El matador beach, that one stole my heart. And of course I would go to Six Flags to get my arenaline experience of the year.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
When I was 13 years old, D-Zone, a group of really cool girls invited me to be a part of their Hip Hop dance crew. They were all women and older than me. With them we used to choreograph shows and perform in every street show, battle or party that we could. We didn’t had a leader so we had to split tasks between everyone and we had to learn to do all types of things; do our music, flyers, clothes, produce events, talk to managers and bussines owners, etc.
That was like university for me, we had our first small dance jobs, but we scalated to work with huge brands like Adidas, Redbull and Puma, and worked in events like Lollapalooza. We grew up together, they are family for me

Instagram: @sofiagrille

Youtube: https://youtu.be/MLPtjAL4dys?si=q3yMo2Pod0xx-Fwc

Image Credits
Ashley Abarzúa
Luis Zamora
Matías Delacroix
Diego Escalante