Guest Profile

Diana Soto

Diana Soto is an up-and-coming Puerto Rican choreographer, performer and dance professor. Her style is peppered with a creative flair while cultivating a clear technique and genuine feeling grounded in Arab dance. On stage and on the classroom she is engaging and vibrant, connecting with audiences and students alike. She believes that the best innovation is rooted in tradition. Soto started studying dance when she was 5 years old. Since then she has presented her dance work in Colombia, Brasil, New York, Florida, Texas and all over Puerto Rico. She was a guest artist in residence at La Espectacular (Puerto Rico) and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (NYC) with her multidisciplinary project “How to be an artist and not die trying?“ integrating interviews, flamenco, contemporary dance and oriental dance along with soundscapes created by Raúl Porro. With a research MA in Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam, Soto taught in 2016 the first ever course on Middle Eastern Dance at the University of Puerto Rico, an interdisciplinary exploration into the diversity of Arab dances and the discourses behind Orientalism and Eurocentrism. She currently lives in Houston where she performs often with renowned dance companies such as Shunyata Dance (fusion), BellaDonna (cabaret), and Folkoholic Dance Theater (dabke and zaffa). She teaches online via dianadancemagic.teachable.com