Sonia York-Pryce is a dancer, videographer, researcher, and photographer. She studied classical ballet and contemporary dance extensively in the UK beginning at Elmhurst Ballet School before moving on to the Royal Ballet School, the London School of Contemporary Dance and the Laban Centre.
She currently lives in Australia where she has followed an academic career. She has a doctorate in Visual Arts from Griffith University. Her doctoral research, ‘Ageism and the Mature Dancer’ concentrated on senior professional dancers still performing over the age of 40. Her interests include the ageing body and how it is framed within a Western dance context. She has collaborated with older professional dancers to produce dance films celebrating their craft and gathered data through a survey and interviews with practitioners working in the field, nationally and internationally.
She has enjoyed artist residencies with Red Gate Gallery, Beijing China, photographing Beijing LDTX Contemporary Dance Company, 2013, 2016; and an interdisciplinary residency with Hospitalfield House, Arbroath Scotland.
Sonia York-Pryce is currently completing a PhD at Flinders University, Adelaide, where her thesis is ‘Disregarding the Dance-By-Date. An Institutional History of the Older Professional Dancer’. Publication of her next book is due later in 2025.
Featured image: Sonia York-Pryce dancing in the Australian outback, c. 2022. Photo: © Barry Pryce
