Biography
Choreographer, Moving Forward • Screendance, Spring 2021
Samantha McLean grew up in Salem, Oregon training at American Ballet Academy under the direction of Annie Joslin. She later shifted her attention to contemporary dance and continued her training at Bodyvox, where she was granted the opportunity to perform with their main company. She went on to pursue and obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance Performance with an emphasis in Pedagogy from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, graduating in 2019.
Throughout her college career, she spent summers in Montreal and Australia furthering her study of Countertechnique under the direction of Anouk Van Dijk. Samantha then performed professionally with littlehouse dance at the Boston Dance Alliance Gala in 2019.
Returning to Oregon post-graduation, she performed with Willamette University in their fall dance concert in multiple works by Faith Morrison, Michele Ainza, and EJ Reinagel. Shortly after her performance with Willamette she joined Beyond Limits Aerial Dance Company under the direction of EJ Reinagel and Jessi Fouts, as well as Polaris Dance Theatre led by Robert Guitron.
Samantha is very excited to be presenting her own work for the first time with Willamette University.