Sophie Bress Interview
Sophie Bress is a freelance journalist, writing about dance and music with a focus on social justice. In the past, she’s written about fitness, the outdoors, and much more. “With my work, I aim to place the art forms I cover in context with other events that are going on culturally,” she says. For more information on her and her work, you can refer to the bio on her website. For her work history, you can refer to herLinkedIn.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I was a dance major in college. For each of our dance technique classes, we had to see a performance and write a review of the show. During my sophomore year, after a particularly disappointing audition for our fall concert, I realized that I actually enjoyed the writing aspect of my dance classes more than the final exams—where we usually had to perform one-by-one in front of the class. After a tearful phone call with my best friend—who was studying journalism at the time—I picked up a journalism minor and I never really looked back.
I went on to earn my Master’s in arts journalism at the University of Southern California, where I was initially studying dance writing. At the time, however, I was deeply involved in the nightlife and festival scene in LA, and with some encouragement from my grad school friends, I wrote my first music article for the online magazine we put together while we were in school. After graduating in May 2020 into a locked-down world, I started writing for Dancing Astronaut, a dance music blog, and was able to get on board with Festival Insider—where I currently publish the majority of the music articles I write—just as they were starting out.