Som Said was born in Singapore on 3 Jan 1951. Growing up, she quickly learned and absorbed the folk music and dance traditions of her community, putting her preciously acquired traditional knowledge to good use eventually in a successful career as teacher, choreographer and impresario. After two decades of teaching and leading the choreographic efforts of the Sriwana cultural troupe, Som Said founded her own performing arts company, Sri Warisan, in 1997. The group has since put together important folk performances and dance-drama tableaus to be showcased at state, tourist and cultural-promotion events in Singapore and abroad.

Som Said, born in Singapore on 3 Jan, 1951, started dancing when she was a young girl in school. What initially was just a hobby for her became something she felt compelled to continue pursuing as she learnt more and more about dance.

In 1965, she joined the Sriwana cultural group as one of its pioneer members, rising eventually to become its artistic director. Her epiphanous experience as a Sriwana dancer under the guidance of Nongchik Ghani opened her eyes to the essence of Malay dance, leading to her being invited to join the National Dance Company. She travelled with the National Dance Company to perform at the Adelaide Festival of Arts, and this experience was to be hugely influential on her. She discovered the hard work and discipline involved as she encountered the high quality of international dancers at the festival.

While in Sriwana, she saw the constant falling back on Indonesian traditions of Malay dance, and she felt the need for a Malay dance that could be called Singapore Malay dance. With the constant encouragement of Nongchik Ghani and Francis Yeoh, Founder and Director of the National Dance Company, she was inspired to draw on her dance experience to create and choreograph her own works.

Som infuses her choreography—which often tells the stories of real people such as Tun Fatimah and Radin Mas—with her heart and soul, so much so that she will have had shed many a tear by the time she completes a piece of choreography. Her choreographic style blends deceptively simple Malay dance routines and gestures with contemporary moves and pan-Asian gestures.

Som’s talents have taken her to major folk festivals around the world, including the Nanning International Folk Song Festival in China (2008) and the International Folklore Festival in Zaragoza, Spain (2008). She received the Cultural Medallion in 1987 and the Public Service Medal in 1992 for her contributions to dance. In 2007, she received the Anugerah Warisan Kencana by the Malay Heritage Centre, Singapore and in 2023, she was awarded The Public Service Star.

Today, Som Said continues to share her love for dance with Sri Warisan, which she founded in 1997. Sri Warisan facilitiates some 3,000 Malay dance and music workshops each year in schools across Singapore, and continues to put on new local and overseas cultural showcases each year.