SOO Dance Academy LLC

Artistic Director and Founder of Soo Dance Academy


Soo started her formal training at the renowned private institute, SUN HWA Art Middle/High School in Seoul, Korea which is known for accepting high achieving students that pass a rigorous entrance exam. At the institute, Soo was taught and trained intensively on the principles of the Russian Vaganova At the age of eight. Soo was selected as one of the dancers for the Universal Ballet Company and performed around her native country. In 1994, Soo came to U.S. and had a privilege of being trained by Yelena Vinogradova, the deputy artistic director at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington D.C. Continuing her training, Soo entered Korea’s prestigious Korea National University of Art, where she majored in dance choreography, which was rare for a classically trained ballerina. During her university years, she trained and danced ballet, modern dance, and traditional Korean dance. During this time, she expanded her ballet career as one of the KNUA ballet members and performed overseas in Spain and the U.S.
Upon arriving in the U.S. in 2002 Soo entered the University of California Berkeley and received her B.A. in Environmental Economics and Dance. Soo’s post university experience included performing at the 30th Anniversary SF Ethnic Dance Festival and teaching traditional Korean dance at Claire Lilienthal School in the Bay Area. Her passion for ballet and teaching inspired her to establish her own dance studio, SOO DANCE COMPANY & ACADEMY in 2012, located in Danville, CA, where she resides today.
Her dance school has successfully performed full productions of Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Don Quixote. In just a few short years, SOO DANCE COMPANY & ACADEMY has earned a strong reputation in the Bay Area and is proud to have placed many of its students into the renowned Kirov Academy of Ballet and NYU. In 2015 the studio relocated to a larger, modern 5,000 square foot custom dance facility located in Blackhawk Plaza in Danville, CA.