Success Stories
Janina Clark
Janina Clark began her training at Portland Festival Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theatre. During the years dancing either studio, Lavinia was a crucial constant in Janina’s professional growth thanks to her guidance and private lessons in Pilates and Ballet. Graduating from Arts and Communications Magnet Academy in 2011, Janina continued her dance education at SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Dance. In New York, her dance knowledge expanded in multiple disciplines: Graham technique, Cunningham technique, Improvisational Skills, and Choreography while continuing in Ballet and Bodyworking. Janina’s first dance company, and beginning of her professional career, was with Balasole Dance company when she was 19, working simultaneously as a sophomore in college. While still in college she was invited to perform as a guest artist for Ballet Philippines Blue Moon Gala with her own choreographic piece. She graduated SUNY Purchase in 2015 with a Bachelors in Fine Arts majoring in Dance and began working with a contemporary chinese dance company, HT Chen and Dancers, in Chinatown New York soon after. While dancing with HT Chen and Dancers, she also freelanced with neighboring dance companies: Humanistics Dance Company and Driggs Productions. In 2016, Europe felt like the next big step. Janina currently is a freelance artist and dancer in the Operballett of Deutsche Oper Berlin, Germany.
Nadine Zimmerlund
Nadine is an energetic, passionate educator and explorer of mind-body practices in her journey as an athlete with Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome. CMT, named for three physicians who first identified it, is a hereditary sensory and motor nerve neuropathy, which affects the nerves that run from the spinal cord to the arms and legs.)
Success Stories
Angela Kim
Angela began her athletic career as a competitive figure skater at the age of 6. She started working with Lavinia when she was 15 while competing in freestyle and dance until she was 18, achieving senior and gold levels. After finishing her competitive career, she was invited to join the prestigious Ice Theater of New York where she performed as an ensemble member. She spent 2 years playing principle roles for Disney on Ice and Royal Caribbean’s Ice Revue. During this time she discovered her passion for the circus arts, moving to Montreal to learn the craft. She spent the next decade specializing in aerial tissu, performing as a freelance artist.
In 2009, Angela brought her skating and circus skills together in a unique blend, combining skating and flying in a seamless performance. Her act was featured in Robin Cousin’s Holiday on Ice show Tropicana which toured Northern Europe. In 2013, Angela teamed up with 5 other artists to create Aerial Ice, an innovative combination of figure skating, rope and tissu. Aerial Ice competed in America’s Got Talent, making it to the quarterfinals at Radio City Music Hall.
In 2017 Angela toured with Cirque du Soleil’s show VOLTA. In addition to a lead character role, she performed in a four artist acrobatic number on 35 foot-tall automated rotating ladders.
Angela is passionate about making sure both her youth and adult students learn strong fundamentals. She views it as essential to help emerging artists find their own vocabulary and unique movement quality, and believes it is the best way to open up possibilities for creativity. She is a certified pilates instructor, and uses this experience to help her students learn to move efficiently and achieve their potential. Angela draws on 15 years of teaching experience as a figure skating coach, pilates instructor and aerial specialist. Angela is currently performing internationally with her aerial straps partner Stuart Mckenzie and coaching workshops around the world.
Lucas Threefoot
Lucas currently dances with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in the South of France. He began dancing age 4, trained and danced with Oregon Ballet Theater School and Company, where he was my student. Lucas is not only a physically exceptional performer, but a deeply curious, spiritual, and explorative person. Check out his blog, below, Corporal Culture:
Leann Underwood Forster
"Leann Underwood was born in California and began dancing at the age of 7. In 1998, she began her training with the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre. During her years as a student at OBT, she trained with Lavinia Magliocco in ballet and Pilates. She has studied on scholarship at the Naha City Ballet in Japan, New York City Ballet's School of American Ballet and at American Ballet Theatre's school.
Underwood became an apprentice at Oregon Ballet Theatre in 2003 and joined the company in 2004. Leann has been a guest artist at the Lafayette Ballet Theatre in the role of the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty. She has performed principal roles in classical and contemporary works by choreographers including George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon, Yuri Possokhov, Christopher Stowell, Mark Morris, James Canfield, Brian Reeder, Marius Petipa and Stephen Mills.
Underwood joined the Studio Company in August 2005, joined American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in November 2006 and the corps de ballet in August 2007.
Her repertoire with the Company includes a Lead D'Jampe and a Shade in La Bayadère, an Odalisque in Le Corsaire, La Lionne in Gaîté Parisienne, Bathilde and Zulma in Giselle, An Episode in His Past in Jardin aux Lilas, the Spanish Dance and one of the Nutcracker's Sisters in Alexei Ratmansky's The Nutcracker, the Older Sister in Pillar of Fire, the Ranch Owner's Daughter in Rodeo, Rosaline in Romeo and Juliet, a big swan, the Spanish Princess and the Spanish Dance in Swan Lake, Diana and Ceres in Sylvia and roles in Airs, Ballo della Regina, Birthday Offering, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Duets, From Here On Out, Overgrown Path, Private Light and Thirteen Diversions. She created the Countess in Alexei Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty and a role in Everything Doesn't Happen at Once.
Since retiring from dance in 2015, Underwood held the position of Student Life and Recruitment Coordinator for the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. She now serves as faculty for the ABT JKO School as well as the ABT YounDancer Summer Workshop.