Sonja Tinnes grew up in Zurich. She received her dance and ballet pedagogical training at the Royal Ballet School in London and was awarded the Benesh Prize for dance notation. While still during her studies at the Benesh Institute of Choreology in Londonshe worked as a guest with the Hamburg Ballet. In 1996 she was appointed choreologist with the company. 
She has studied numerous ballets by John Neumeier, at the Finnish National in Helsinki, the Stanislavsky Ballet in Moscow, the National Ballet of Canada, the Australian Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, the Ballet of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Ballet in Düsseldorf, Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, the Semperoper Ballett Dresden, the Vienna State Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow.