Lahna Vanderbush

Sponsored by Mary Vandenberg and Keith Mardak

Lahna Vanderbush was born in Nagoya, Japan, and raised in Eugene, Oregon. She began her training at the Eugene Ballet Academy, later finishing at the San Francisco Ballet School under the direction of Gloria Govrin and Lola de Ávila. She began her career in 2007 at Alberta Ballet, where she performed many works by director Jean Grand-Maître, including The Fiddle and the Drum, Dangerous Liaisons, Mozart Requiem, and Carmen, as well as works by George Balanchine, Kirk Peterson, Christopher Wheeldon, and Mikko Nissinen. 

In 2009, she was a guest artist with Norwegian National Ballet and Eugene Ballet Company, later joining Ballet San Jose (now Silicon Valley Ballet). There she had the opportunity to dance many classics, including Swan Lake, Coppélia, Paquita, Don Quixote, Cinderella, and Giselle (including the American premiere of Alicia Alonso’s rendition), as well as works by Léonide Massine, George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton, Jerome Robbins, Jorma Elo, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Igal Perry. Vanderbush was also featured in Silicon Valley Ballet’s presentations of Roland Petit’s Carmen, Paul Taylor’s Piazzolla Caldera, Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, and Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16. She has toured Canada, the United States, China, and Spain with Alberta Ballet and Silicon Valley Ballet. 

Since joining Milwaukee Ballet in 2016, she has been featured as Claudia in Michael Pink’s Mirror Mirror, Fanny (Belle’s sister) in the world premiere of Beauty and the Beast, Odile in Swan Lake, Marie in The Nutcracker, Titania in Bruce Wells’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Swanhilda in Pink’s Coppélia, Esmeralda in Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Michael Darling in Peter Pan.