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Sofia Zobel Elizalde Reflects on Steps Dance Studio's 31st Anniversary

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<div style="text-align:center"><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:700px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739933544662batch_EDITED-STEPS-18 copy.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:700px"/><span class="fr-inner">Sofia Zobel Elizalde of Steps Dance Studio has collaborated with world-renowned choreographer Nicholas Palmquist who shares the school&#x27;s mission of producing incredible dancers. | Photography by Pat Buenaobra</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align:center"><br/></div><p style="text-align:left">Renowned dancer and choreographer Martha Graham once said, “Dance is the hidden language of the soul.” Imagine three decades of speaking the hidden language of many souls who chose to pursue their passion for dancing at <strong>Steps Dance Studio</strong>.</p><p><strong>Sofia Zobel Elizalde</strong>—the founder and director of progressive dance school and Royal Academy-certified Steps Dance Studio—couldn’t help but be in awe as the dance studio enters its 31st year.</p><p>“Opening the studio 31 years ago was a great milestone. So many things have happened in 31 years. But I think, in the end, it all boils down to all the kids that we have been able to produce through the years and some incredible dancers that we&#x27;ve been able to place in dance companies locally and abroad as well. Our milestones include the incredible teachers and the incredible choreographers we&#x27;ve worked with through the years and some of the great friendships we&#x27;ve made with local and foreign artists and choreographers,” she reflected, gracious and thankful for the decades-long existence of Steps Dance Studio.</p><p><strong>Metro.Style</strong> delves deeper into Sofia Zobel Elizalde’s thoughts about her journey with Steps Dance Studio and how renowned choreographer <strong>Nicholas Palmquist</strong> has contributed to more milestones for the dance school.</p><div><br/></div><div style="text-align:center"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739933618684batch_editedSTEPS-10 copy (1).jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>Dance for dreams, philanthropy </strong></div><p>It started with a dream, and now that Steps Dance Studio continues its journey towards a new decade, Sofia Zobel Elizalde feels she has achieved what she initially set out to do and even went beyond it.</p><p>“I think I&#x27;ve surpassed the vision I had. When I first started my school, it was very basic. My dream was to put up a very good school that offered everything from classical ballet to contemporary dance to jazz to different kinds of movement. And then we sort of developed ourselves. We brought in the Royal Academy of Dance method, and we&#x27;ve done 30 years of that. But then we started developing very strong dancers, and we started performing a lot. We started competing, and then we started creating professional dancers. So, I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would meet the incredible personalities that I have,” Zobel Elizalde shares.</p><p>“Being with the school for 31 years has helped me get in touch with teachers and meet very interesting artists from all over the world, and has allowed me to bring teachers here and be able to expose my students. I think it has definitely surpassed everything that I wished for. My students have soared high and made it to companies I would have never imagined. So, definitely, the dream keeps on growing and moving forward. The journey has continued to have wonderful surprises along the way,” she ruminates.</p><p>As the founder, the success and longevity of the dance school have had a profound personal impact on Zobel Elizalde.</p><p>“It&#x27;s been an incredible journey. It&#x27;s been very fulfilling, very enriching for me to be able to play a role in all the students that have come through my school to play the role in their lives and to be able to help them get to where they want to be. It&#x27;s sort of being that person that helps them get the training that they want and helps them discover that they really want this as a career and help them get [there] whether it&#x27;s locally or abroad. And, you know, in the end, helping them make their dreams come true,” she beams, looking even more inspired by the realization.</p><div><br/></div><div style="text-align:center"><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:700px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739935013064batch_STEPS-63.jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner">Nicholas Palmquist teaching at Steps Dance Studio</span></span></span></div><div><br/></div><p>The beautiful thing about Steps Dance Studio is its evolution to being more than a dance school, expanding into philanthropic efforts with The Steps Scholarship Foundation. The non-profit organization gives free dance education to gifted young Filipino dancers regardless of their socio-economic background.</p><p>“About 10 years after I started my school, I felt the need to start the scholarship foundation because I had a lot of kids who wanted to take a class. But for them to be able to reach a certain level in dance, they really needed to come almost every day. And, of course, as we know, things cost a lot of money. It can be very expensive. So that&#x27;s when I really felt I need to put a foundation together that can help support children from difficulties, financially, and to be able to give them equal opportunities. The Steps Scholarship Foundation was born, and basically, the thrust of my foundation is to really give free dance training to very talented Filipino children. It&#x27;s been incredibly successful, and I would say that a lot of our kids who have been in the program have really gone on to professional careers, and it&#x27;s been very fulfilling for me,” she says, smiling.</p><p>Zobel Elizalde continues to share what the foundation meant to her and how it impacts young Filipino talents: “It&#x27;s one of my favorite parts of the school that we do this because in the end, you know, you just never know where good artists are going to come from and I just love the fact that we welcome young dancers from anywhere. As long as they want to dance and as long as they have the discipline and they want to really work hard, learn, and develop themselves, this is the right place for them,” she declares, supportive of the dreams of young dancers.</p><div><br/></div><div style="text-align:center"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739935641418batch_STEPS-62.jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>Steps forward to the future</strong></div><p>Never resting on its laurels, Steps Dance Studio looks forward to an exciting future and is bent on continuing the tradition of producing world-class talents. One way of doing this is by flying in internationally recognized choreographers as teachers.</p><p>Nicholas Palmquist visited the Philippines to mark Steps Dance Studio’s 30th anniversary last year.  He is a renowned professional dancer and choreographer, working on a wide variety of dance genres, and has worked on commercial projects such as Baz Luhrmann’s The Get Down, The Tony Awards, Saturday Night Live, and The Tonight Show. This 2025, he found himself back in the country again to fulfill his mission as a dance educator.</p><p>Interestingly, the collaboration between Palmquist and Steps Dance Studio began during the pandemic, the lockdown, and when all people turned to social media. No less than Sofia Zobel Elizalde herself slid into the DMs of the choreographer to pitch a partnership.</p><p>“All our classes here at Steps for almost three years were online. I was trying to find ways to keep my school very exciting for the kids, which was very hard because nobody could leave their homes. I was going through my social media, and I came across Nicholas teaching dance classes at Steps on Broadway. I thought he was a fascinating choreographer. His musicality was incredible. His movement was very different from what I had normally seen. Just his whole vibe, his whole energy was different. So, believe it or not, I reached out to him on social media, and I said, you know, ‘Nicholas, I&#x27;m a fan of your work. I&#x27;ve been seeing all your classes. Would you be willing to teach for me?’ And, incredibly enough, he answered me right away, and we agreed to meet online. And so he taught, I believe, it was two or three classes [on Zoom]. I was so impressed,” Zobel Elizalde narrates.</p><div><br/></div><div style="text-align:center"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739935699299batch_STEPS-28.jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><br/></div><div><br/></div><p>The Steps Dance Studio director liked how Palmquist was attentive to his students even when the dance classes were online.</p><p>“One thing that impressed me was the way he was able to communicate with each and every student through a computer screen and managed to give corrections to every single student in his class. He was even able to pick out and immediately saw the incredibly talented students, gave them incredible corrections, and it was like a full-blown class online. I was so impressed by that,” she shares, adding that she vowed to invite the choreographer to the Philippines once the pandemic was over. And the rest, as they say, is history.</p><p>This year is Palmquist’s second time visiting the Steps Dance Studio. “His classes were so successful. What&#x27;s wonderful about Nicholas’ class is his style is very sort of jazz contemporary. He&#x27;s open to all body types, all kinds of dancers—from classical dancers to contemporary dancers to jazz dancers to actors. Everyone&#x27;s welcome,” Zobel Elizalde begins.</p><p>“He is just such an amazing teacher. I’ve never seen the classes so full. I’ve never seen students that are so inspired. It was such a wonderful experience last year.  We fell in love with him as a teacher. He fell in love with Filipinos as students. He’s a teacher that inspires. He pushes the kids to move in different ways that they&#x27;re used to. His musicality is difficult but so dynamic in the pieces. And his choreography is just very unique. It’s been a real pleasure working with him,” she continues.</p><div><br/></div><div style="text-align:center"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739935848139batch_STEPS-39.jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><br/></div><p>Similarly, Palmquist is happy and satisfied with his work with Steps Dance Studio. “Every facet of Steps takes such good care of me and the students, so it&#x27;s very easy to return here because I feel well taken care of. But the work ethic, I think, of the culture and the students is just so fun to experience. I don&#x27;t feel like I have to pull emotion out of them. I don&#x27;t have to pull discipline or hard work out of them. It&#x27;s really baked into their approach, I think, to life. It&#x27;s a joy for me to take all of my different experiences from different parts of the world and bring them here so that you can maybe speak to something that a student doesn&#x27;t have access to as a guest teacher. I get to come in, and it&#x27;s kind of nice to be the guest and have really rapt attention for two weeks. And yeah, I think as a teacher, you can&#x27;t really ask for more than effort, and I get a lot of effort here from everyone,” he says.</p><p>Palmquist is deeply passionate about dancing, especially since he started doing it at 10. While he has done a lot of activities based on coordination, like gymnastics and taekwondo, he goes back to dancing and even developed a love for teaching dance.</p><p>“I think there was something about music and the expression of emotions that just kind of clicked for me,” he smiles. </p><p>“It&#x27;s been really fun to transition into the educational side of dance. I think being a part of projects where there&#x27;s a lot of money, or there&#x27;s a lot of tension, is really exciting for a dancer. But I think it&#x27;s been equally rewarding to kind of transition a little bit more internally and to explore with students why they dance on a really fundamental level and what makes it joyful for them and then how they can translate that into industry-related projects,” he states, explaining his turn as a dance educator.</p><div><br/></div><div style="text-align:center"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739936040238batch_STEPS-3.jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><p>He particularly cherishes a standout and favorite moment as a teacher in this year’s visit to the Philippines.</p><p>“I think what I&#x27;ve really enjoyed is the more mixed classes. We&#x27;ve offered advanced and intermediate. And in the intermediate classes, there have been dancers in their ’50s mixed with dancers who are 9 and 10 years old. I think it&#x27;s a really wonderful opportunity for young dancers to be inspired by professionals and also for professionals to see how much fun non-professionals are having with dance. Sometimes, when you are working towards a really specific goal, you can lose that spark or that joy. And so I think to mix the classes has been really fun, I think, for everyone involved to see just a different intention and priority,” Palmquist pensively shares.</p><p>As Sofia Zobel Elizalde continues to bridge the gap between world-class Filipino dancers and amazing opportunities through Steps Dance Studio and The Steps Scholarship Foundation, she says everything begins and ends with the love of dancing she has nurtured in her heart. This is how she defines dancing.</p><div><br/></div><div style="text-align:center"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739937186437batch_STEPS-1.jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/></div><div><br/></div><p>As Sofia Zobel Elizalde continues to bridge the gap between world-class Filipino dancers and amazing opportunities through Steps Dance Studio and The Steps Scholarship Foundation, it all begins and ends with the love of dancing she has nurtured in her heart. This is how she defines dancing.</p><p>“Dancing is not only an art form, it&#x27;s also a form of expression. And, each and every one of us finds our own voice in dance, and I think if that artist and dancer is in you, it&#x27;s a very fulfilling art form to be in, and it&#x27;s a self-expression that is unique to each and every person,” she declares.</p><p>“I think that when you&#x27;re in a studio, and you&#x27;re doing what you love, and you&#x27;re being able to communicate through your body and through movement, it&#x27;s a very enriching feeling. I think that a lot of artists actually find their voice through movement rather than speaking… for anybody who&#x27;s a dancer, it&#x27;s healing. It&#x27;s expression. It&#x27;s joyful. It&#x27;s demanding. It&#x27;s hard work. But it feels so good. And in the end, when you see a good dancer on stage, there is nothing better than paying for that ticket to watch that incredible dancer on stage, and that&#x27;s what we try to do here. We try to bring out all that talent in these kids and allow them to do what they love and create incredible dancers for the world to see,” she concludes.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:700px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1739937343012batch_STEPS-25.jpg" style="width:700px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" spellcheck="false">Metro Society editor-in-chief and Metro Channel&#x27;s <em>EIC on the Move</em> host Raul Manzano with Steps Dance Studio founder and director Sofia Zobel Elizalde, and world-renowned choreographer Nicholas Palmquist</span></span></span><br/>Photography by <strong>Pat Buenaobra</strong></div><div><strong></strong></div>

<p>Steps Dance Studio’s presence for over thirty years has produced exceptional professional dancers and provided opportunities to make dreams come true</p>

Steps Dance Studio’s presence for over thirty years has produced exceptional professional dancers and provided opportunities to make dreams come true

Sofia Zobel Elizalde Reflects on Steps Dance Studio’s 31 Years of Incredible Journey

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Sofia Zobel Elizalde Reflects on Steps Dance Studio’s 31 Years of Incredible Journey

Grace Diez

Published Feb 19, 2025 12:00 PM PHT

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Updated Feb 19, 2025 12:05 PM PHT

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