Faculty

Samantha A. MacNaughton-Vachon, Artistic Director and Owner

Samantha is the owner and artistic director of Step Above Most Dance Center. In addition to owning and operating her own studio, Samantha is also the Professor at Plymouth State University. Samantha begin her training in ballet at four years old and continued to add to her repertoire as she got older. What started at a single ballet class one a week blossomed into a life long passion of the arts, encompassing jazz, tap, pointe, hip-hop contemporary and modeling. At the age of six samantha was selected as the youngest member of the NH Ballet Ensemble which would be the first of many opportunities to perform all over the state with other talented dancers.

Sam spent her summers honing her skills with some of the greats. After being accepted at several international dance camps, Samantha chose to split her summers between Burklyn Ballet Theatre and Gus Giordano's annual World Congress. It was at Burklyn that she trained with greats like David Howard, Cherie Noble, Arthur Leeth, and Angela Whitehill. Samantha MacNaughton-Vachon was chosen as a soloist in several of the performances there and was invited to perform in the annual Edinburgh Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. At the World Congress Sam trained with Gus and Nan Giordano, Suzanne Quinn, Joe Tremaine, Frank Hatchett, Patsy Swaze, and numerous members of Gus Giordano's Company. Sam was invited and performed in Gus Giordano's Choreography competition at just seventeen years old.

Samantha studied tap under the direction of Aaron Tolson (Soloist with Riverdance) and Michelle Tolson (Radio City Music Hall Rockettes). She was fortunate to meet and study with Savion Glover and was selected as a soloist in his first big show, "Getting Hip To The Tap Hop."

Samantha was awarded scholarships to Point Park College, Mercyhurst, the University of Oklahoma, Goucher, and the Rock School. Her numerous awards include Dance Masters of America scholarship winner in Ballet, Jazz and Pointe, Miss Headliner (regional winner), Miss Dance Ovations, American Dance Awards Miss Dance (regional winner), American Dance Awards High Score Solo, Nominated to the National Dance Council of America and a former Miss Capital Area (prelim to the Miss New Hampshire pageant.)

Samantha taught at numerous studios in and around the NH area for ten years. Samantha loves owning her own studio and watching her young students blossom into beautiful dancers. Samantha is a married and has a little boy named Jackson Daniel.

Megan Nordle

Megan Nordle is a professional dancer and recent graduate of The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA receiving a BFA in Modern Dance Performance with an Emphasis in Choreography. Prior to attending UArts, shea was a student at The New Hampshire School of Ballet for ten years, where as a member of the NHSB's competition team, she was honored with the titles of Dance Masters of America's Chapter 5 Teen Miss Dance of New England 2002, American Dance Awards Teen (2002) and Miss Dance of America 2003, and Headliners National Miss Dance 2005. She was awarded ADA's Young Choreographer of the Year in 2005

While attending UArts, Megan had the pleasure of working with many esteemed choreographers such as Christine Cox (artistic director of BalletX), Ronen Koresh (A.D. of Koresh Dance Company), Silvana Cardell, Curt Haworth, and Christopher Huggins (former principal dancer with Alvin Ailey), and was educated under the phenomenal guide of Scott Jovovich (Joffrey Ballet), Kim Bears-Bailey (A.D. of Philadanco), Jennifer Binford-Johnson, Zane Booker, and Brian Sanders artistic director of Philadelphia's "Junk". Megan was a part of the New Festival in 2008, working on Melanie Stewart's "Kill Me Now", featured in Philadelphia's Fringe Festival 2009, and spent the summer dancing with the Portland Ballet as a guest artist. From 2009-2010 she was a soloist with Contempra Dance Theater.

During her Senior year at UArts, Megan spent the majority of her time self producing an evening length show which featured entirely original choreography. The show premiered at the historical Arts Bank Theater in Center City Philadelphia on the famous Avenue of the Arts.

Immediately after graduating, Megan was hired as the Director of the Modern at the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School for Performing and Fine Arts, where she additionally taught Advanced Ballet and Pointe. Megan began her teaching career as a professional figure skating coach in 2006 at the age of sixteen. Since then, she has been teaching figure skating and dance to students of all ages and abilities: an aspect of her life which brings her true happiness! She is thrilled at this stellar opportunity to share passion for dance with the students at Step Above Most!

Kirstin Vanbuskirk

Kirstin Vanbuskirk started dancing at age six at the Deborah MacKay School of Dance in Webster, NY. By the age twelve she had been awarded First Place recognition at the  Showstopper National Talent Competition in Toronto, Canada and a "Beautiful Feet" award at the American Dance Spectrum for her solo ballet piece, as well as a First Place finish at Showstopper National Talent Competition for group tap. At age twelve she spent her first summer away from home to take part in The Pennsylvania Ballet's summer program in Philadelphia. At fourteen, she received a scholarship to attend a summer session at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, PA. At fifteen she became a student demonstrator at her home studio and was also able to begin student teaching there as well.

In 1996 Kirstin and her family moved to Exeter, New Hampshire and she enrolled in classes at Ballet New England in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was here that she was able to study under the direction of Mihailo (Misha) Djuric and future Director Angela Sears. After high school Kirstin was accepted to the University of New Hampshire where she studied ballet with C. Larry Robertson (Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet) as well as tap and jazz with Gay Nardone (Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall). During her college years she also studied with Barbara Mullen and performed with the New England Dance Ensemble. She performed in UNH Dance Showcases and with the UNH Ballet Company from 2001 to 2003. She graduated from UNH in 2003 with an B.S. in Business Administration (Whittemore School of Business and Economics) and a Minor in Dance.

After a few years in Southern Massachusetts, Kirstin has returned to New Hampshire permanently and is excited to begin the new year of dance at Step Above Most!