Sam Turner

Sam began his training in music and dance at the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Jr. School of the Arts in Palm Beach, the Academy of Ballet Florida and Boston Ballet; performing in works by Marie Hale, Gerri Houlihan, Gina Buntz and Kathryn Posin. After high school, Sam was accepted into the Ballet program at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana. There he was coached and mentored by Violette Verdy, Guillaume Graffin, John Clifford, Julie Kent, Jacque Cesbron, George Pinney, and performed principal roles within the classical and contemporary repertoire. Graduating with a B.S. double focusing in Ballet and Kinesiology, Sam moved back to the east coast where he had the pleasure of working with leading choreographers including Mark Morris, Elisa Monte, Jennifer Archibald, and Karen Kayle. Company credits include Chicago Dance Theatre-Chicago IL, Roxey Ballet-Lambertville NJ, American Repertory Ballet-Princeton NJ and Elisa Monte Dance Company-NYC. While with these companies, he toured throughout the United States, Canada, Italy, France and Greece performing in works choreographed by Graham Lustig, Twyla Tharp, Lisa de Ribere, Elisa Monte and Tiffany Rea-Fisher. Stage and industry credits include The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Cirque du Soleil at Radio City, Iphigénie en Tauride at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Orfeo ed Euridice at The Metropolitan Opera. During this time, Sam was invited to perform original works choreographed by Karen Gayle at the Inside/Out Festival at Jacob’s Pillow, DUMBO Dance Festival, and at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto for The International Association of Blacks in Dance Festival.

Sam is an ABT® NTC Fellow, certified in Pre-Primary through Level V of the ABT® National Training Curriculum and has successfully presented students for examination.