Sara Elyse Sanford

Sara began her dance training under Don Steffy, former Artistic Director of the Montgomery Ballet. In 1998, she joined the Alabama Dance Theatre as a company member under the direction of Kitty Seale and Haynes Owens. In 2001, she received a Dance Magazine full scholarship to attend the Craft of Choreography Conference as a dancer.

 

Through several summer seminars with the Alabama Dance Theatre she began her choreography training under Leslie Jane Pessemier. Numerous works have appeared at the Regional Dance America / Southeast Festival over the years, and, in 2007, her piece C’est La Vie was selected to be performed at the Regional Dance America’s National Festival in Pittsburgh, PA. In 2012, her piece Way of Grace was selected to be performed at the Regional Dance America’s National Festival in Montreal, Canada. In 2022 she worked with Baldwin and Troy University. Her work Morphology was awarded Gala Credit at the RDA SE Festival in Daytona Beach, Florida, and in 2023, at the RDA SE Festival in Montgomery, her work A Lady We All Know was on the Gala, while her commissioned piece The Innocents for The Perla Ballet of St. Augustine, Florida, was awarded Gala Credit. She has staged her full length Dracula   for Gwinnett Ballet Theatre and has most recently staged a new work for Southern Ballet Theatre.

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As a choreographer, she has attended the Craft of Choreography Conference in Seattle, WA and Winston-Salem, NC. Through Regional Dance America, she is the Choreographer Connection award winner, and as a result attended the Glenda Brown Choreography Project in Kansas City, MO numerous times. She is a two-time Fellowship recipient of the Alabama State Council on the Arts. In addition to her contemporary classical works, she has a growing repertoire of full length ballets such as Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol, Cinderella, Dracula, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White.