SMC functions both as a company and a casting agency for Middle Eastern and North African industry dancers with the goal of developing dancers, building community, and booking those who continue to show up with consistency, professionalism, and care.

Sofia Mahdavi is a choreographer, dancer, and creative visionary pioneering the dance industry as we know it in the MENA region and its diaspora.  After developing the first and only casting database in existence for Middle Eastern and North African dancers across the US, Sofia launched SMC, Sofia Mahdavi Choreography Co., as the first company to exist exclusively for professional MENA commercial dancers in the industry. 

Being Iranian and Mexican and having lived across California, New York, and Abu Dhabi, her choreography is a reflection of all of the languages her body speaks. Sofia is known for her signature fusion of commercial styles of jazz funk, hiphop and contemporary with traditional styles from the region such as bellydance, Iraqi dance, Persian dance, bandari, and dabke, often incorporating elements of afrobeats and latin styles as current MENA global sounds demand.

• I will continue to cast authentically and bring my community with me in all that iI do. I want the dancers in my rooms to resonate with the culture, the stories, and the nuance and experiences of the artists I work with while also delivering work that is reflective of the professional industry.

• I want to give back to the region and ensure that the dance industry develops there and that we see more and more MENA dancers in the professional world both in diaspora and their homelands. That starts HERE.

• I can train and mold dancers to my choreography, but I cannot teach the feeling and reality that comes with being Arab, Persian, MENA, however you wish to categorize us. That is precisely why what we have to offer is profoundly powerful and loaded with meaning and fight. With a passion for life.

• I am actively setting the standard for the MENA dance industry and ensuring that dancers and choreographers are respected and fairly compensated, elevating them to stand equally alongside their artist counterparts.

Sofia Mahdavi