About Nina Soyfer as Dancer, Choreographer, and Dance Educator

Nina Soyfer was born in Vinnitsya City, Ukraine. At the age of five she started her music, dance, and art education. By fourteen years old she graduated from music secondary school, and gained professional dance experience. Since then, she performed in many professional dance ensembles in Ukraine, Russia, and Canada. Nina Soyfer successfully participated in different competitions and performed as lead dancer and within various groups. Nina toured Ukraine, Russia, and Canada with these performing groups, which include ADE (www.afridance.com), Sohnut Dance Ensemble (as dancer and choreographer), Vinnitsya Center for the Arts Trio (with funk and rock-and-roll styles), York Univeristy Dance Team, Toronto Israeli Dance (choreographer Ronit Zunich), Russian Dance Ensemble “Vozrojdeniye” (as dancer and co-choreographer), and several other groups.

Starting at just sixteen years old, Nina started choreographing and organizing dance compositions within the contemporary and Latin American Papyri styles. Nina enjoys stylizing a variety of ethnic dances of the world and creating new dance styles. Subsequently, Nina conducted several dance workshops and dance related programs, involving Israeli, African, Middle Eastern, Russian, Hip-Hop, and Funk dance styles. Nina taught dance at York University as a Teaching Assistant for African Dance and Drumming courses. She conducted workshops at York Univeristy and in Public Schools of Toronto, taught dance and dance integrated with visual arts and dance, and has invented the Integrated Arts Method, grounded in scientific theory, for effectively developing artistic talents in students, as part of her PhD studies.

In 2005 Nina collaborated with Russian Celebrity Vadim Kozachenko to choreograph a Middle Eastern dance for the “Russian Matreshka 2005” festival, and performed as a first dancer.

As part of the African Dance Ensemble, Nina performed for the Governor General of Canada in 2009 – see video.

She has studied Indian Dance, Israeli ancient dances, as well as Ukrainian, Russian, Latin American, Funk, Eastern, Contemporary. Nina holds certification from York University in African Dance Ensemble, and she has studied African dance with Isaac Akrong, Sani-Abu Mohammed Allen, Amadou Kienou, Modesto Amegago, and Kwasi Dunyo. She studied contemporary and mixed styles briefly with Professor Terrill Maguire. As part of her PhD, Nina has also integrated dance with visual arts and music pedagogies, and she has invented the Integrated Arts Method IAM (www.iamethod.com), grounded in scientific theory, for effectively developing artistic talents in students.