10/03/2025
We are so thrilled to take you behind the scenes with Company member tomorrow for the opening night of Zikr Dance Ensemble’s Fall ‘25 season •
Sanford Placide was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti where he began learning Afro-Caribbean and folkloric dance at 11. After emigrating to the U.S., he trained with Ballet Etudes of South Florida, Francois Perron at Manhattan Youth Ballet, the French Academie of Ballet in NYC, and privately with Nadege Hottier. He also attended summer intensives at American Ballet Theatre, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Ballet Austin, Ballet Hispanico, and LINES Ballet. Placide’s professional career spans six seasons with Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH), following engagements with Alberta Ballet, Ballet West 2, and North Carolina Dance Theatre 2 (now Charlotte Ballet). He has performed as a guest artist with companies including Ballet Etudes of South Florida, Voorhees Ballet, Collage Dance Collective, Black Iris Dance Project, Boca Ballet Theater, Ballet Northwest, Ballet des Amériques, Traverse City Dance Project, Accent Dance, Ballet Theater of Scranton, Tabula Rasa Dance, and FJK Dance. His repertoire includes works by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Nacho Duato, Stanton Welch, Glenn Tetley, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Wen Wei Wang, Robert Garland, Mark Diamond, Desmond Richardson, Yukicchi Hattori, Aszure Barton. Tiffany Rae Fischer, and Claudia Schreier. Off stage, Placide has appeared in short films, fashion magazines, and media interviews. He performed at Aretha Franklin’s Holiday Party in Detroit and was featured in a Times Square digital billboard campaign by artist Terry Rosenberg. Internationally, he performed in Isadora at Moscow’s Stanislavski Theater, produced by Ardani Artists featuring Natalia Osipova. As Founder & Creative Director of UNI, an art collective launched in 2018 in commemoration of Haitian Flag Day, he collaborated with the Consulate General of Haiti in New York to produce the series, receiving honors for his work in preserving Haitian culture. The series continued in 2019 and was hosted virtually in 2020.This is Sanford’s first season with Zikr Dance Ensemble.
