Returning to belong: The artistic journey of Sonia Rodríguez

On February 14, with the studio decorated in hearts and barely seventeen years old, Sonia Rodríguez walked through the doors of the National Ballet of Canada without understanding a word of what was being said around her. She auditioned and was accepted “just like that,” she recalls. Weeks later, in April, she returned with a contract in hand and practically no English. The youngest member of a company of about eighty dancers – and, as she notes, with no Hispanic presence at the time – began to make her way between rehearsals and tours, adopted “a little” by her colleagues while she slowly found her artistic voice.

The impulse began long before that trip. In Spain, during her training, she realized that dance was not a passing desire but a profession that would require her to go out into the world. “At 12 years old I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I knew I was going to be a dancer,” she says. The opportunity came after winning an international competition in Italy. There were invitations from schools and companies and, eventually, an audition in Toronto to discover – in her words – “where I had come from.” Returning to Canada was less an act of nostalgia than a professional decision: the National Ballet was a solid company with a wide repertoire and international touring, a platform that opened stages far beyond Toronto.

That framework, however, immediately presented its challenges. “I was the youngest and I didn’t speak a word,” she remembers. In an art form where expression is physical but rehearsal is organized with words, not understanding the language multiplies the sense of isolation. The welcome from her colleagues – “they adopted me a little… I felt like the pet” – and the presence of her godmother in the city softened the first impact. Even so, those first three months were “very hard”: the winter, the enforced silence, the distance from family in an era when international phone calls were an occasional luxury. She survived by smiling, observing and absorbing: that, in her memory, was the method.

Making her way as a Hispanic dancer in a company with no close references meant learning without a mirror. “There was no one representing Hispanics,” she says of her early years. The absence of compatriots did not lead to resignation, but to a sustained work ethic. First came the corps de ballet, then technically demanding roles and, over time, parts that required greater dramatic maturity. She explains this curve through the constant back-and-forth between life and art. “Being an artist and also being a person… they complement each other,” she likes to say. Experiences offstage enrich what is asked of her on stage, and the stage, in turn, raises questions about who she is and how she inhabits the world.

Motherhood deepened that exchange. Life no longer revolved solely around the perfect preparation for each performance; another centre of gravity appeared. “I felt very, very empowered in my performances,” she says of that shift from absolute self-demand to a wider, more generous focus. Responsibility for her children and the perspective that comes with time relaxed a certain rigidity and gave her characters a new interiority.

She also learned the institutional dimension of her art. In Canada, ballet is still a relatively young sector, with selective public support and a decisive private base. This reality makes it necessary to build strong ties with audiences, donors and sponsors while defending a high-quality repertoire. For a young dancer looking at the map from Toronto, there was another tension: distance. “You feel a little isolated,” she admits, especially at the beginning. Touring was the answer. Support from funders allowed the company to travel to Europe and Asia, and those weeks on the road gave the seventeen-year-old artist a sense of the real rhythm of the profession.

With time, the numbers reveal the scale of her contribution. “My career was spent 32 years in a company that is 75,” she notes. It is not a minor figure. It means she has danced for nearly half of the National Ballet’s life, shaping its memory and its legacy. In countless productions, her performances became part of how audiences imagine classic heroines and contemporary creations; her presence helped define an era.

Migration, in her story, is not a straight line but a triangle of affections and decisions. Her parents left a harsh Spain under Francoism, then raised their daughter first in Canada and later in Spain. There were eight years in Toronto and a return; a Spanish childhood and youth; then, another move back to her birth city, this time to turn it into a lasting home. She carries a constant awareness of that double belonging. She does not idealize either shore: she misses the more open social life of Spain, and she values Canada for its professional platform and the ability to build a future through work.

Hispanic identity, for Sonia, becomes both a contribution and a radar. Discipline, attention to detail, resistance to fatigue are not slogans; they are hours at the barre, on stage and in transit. They are also, now, an open door. Where she once saw no one with a similar background in the company, she hopes new generations will find references and community she did not have when she started.

To an immigrant girl who dreams of stepping onto a major Canadian stage, Sonia offers advice stripped of rhetoric: cultivate your vocation and protect the initial spark. “Keep nurturing that passion,” she urges, knowing the road will contain difficult stretches and that perseverance, more than a single stroke of luck, sustains long careers. The advice does not soften the rigor. It assumes that technique matures over years, that study never really ends, and that the environment matters. In her own path, opportunities arose within a structure that offered repertoire, tours and great teachers. The rest was work.

Over time, she developed a deep interest in the human mind, in why we do what we do. That curiosity fed her ability to inhabit complex characters and connect emotionally with audiences beyond pure execution. Hence her distinction between being “just technical” and being a real artist. She does not dismiss precision; she reframes it. Technique, without inner life, is not enough. “I became… not just someone who was technical, but someone who was a true artist,” she explains. That “true artist” is not a fixed title; it is a state you reach when interpretation stops being constrained by fear and the obsession with control and becomes open, generous and fully present.

When she thinks about the future of the Hispanic community in Canada, her answer avoids both triumphalism and lament. She speaks instead of a country woven by people who came from somewhere else. “We’re all foreigners,” she reflects; difference does not separate, it enriches the fabric. In that tapestry, Hispanic culture contributes its own density of music, language, humour and discipline. Art, in this frame, is more than entertainment. “I think art is extremely important and it’s becoming more and more important,” she says. In times when many relationships are mediated by screens, the stage preserves something irreplaceable: a shared experience of feeling in real time.

Returning to belong: that line could sum up her journey. She did not return to repeat the past, but to build something new. First, through training and a discipline that accepts no shortcuts. Later, on stage and on tour, representing a company that came of age while she grew as a performer. And always, with the clarity of someone who knows that art is nourished by life – distance, motherhood, grief, small lessons and big leaps. If the initial question was what it means to make a life in dance, the answer comes full circle: it meant finding on stage a form of home, and in her artistic community a way of belonging to a country.