The best physical theatre occupies the space between the abstraction of dance and the directness of drama, and when it clicks it has the power and insight of both. Last year, Dalisa Pigrim’s Gudirr Gudirr, a transcendent example of the form, had me spellbound. It’s happened again, this time courtesy of Samantha Chester’s mysterious, superbly executed and ineffably sad The Astronaut.

— The West Australian (4.5 Stars)

Samantha Chester is an independent dance theatre maker, movement director, performer and educator from Sydney. She is passionate about devised physical performance and has worked with all ages and abilities in both professional and educative environments to create and deliver new theatre and movement work.

Samantha has worked as a movement consultant for all the mainstream theatre companies in Sydney and in 2010 she worked with the Wallabies national Rugby Union Team as a movement consultant. In 2011/12 Samantha was part of Cultivate/Culminate, the inaugural dance theatre development program through Force Majeure. She was the Head of Movement and Associate Director at the Actors Centre Australia from 2008–2015 and has taught and directed extensively at NIDA, PACT, AFTRS and the University of Notre Dame Australia.

She was the co-founder of creative space Queen Street Studio (Brand X) and was Director of independent dance space ReadyMade Works. She was awarded the Mike Walsh fellowship to travel to NY to train with the SITI Company in Viewpoints and Suzuki disciplines.

She has a BA in Dance from UWS Nepean, a Post Graduate in Arts Management from UTS and a Post Graduate in Movement Studies from NIDA where she trained with the great Keith Bain.

In April 2014 she premiered Safety in Numbers at Riverside Theatre (video below) as part of the Dance Bites program and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, travelling to Spain, France, UK and Belgium investigating devising techniques in dance and theatre. In 2015–2016 Samantha was the Associate Artist for the NSW Choreographic Centre, Critical Path where she curated The Body of Ideas Lab and in 2016 she debuted her first full-length solo work The Astronaut to much critical acclaim.

She is currently the Movement co-ordinator and Senior Lecturer for Acting and Senior Lecturer in Performance Making at the Western Australian Academy for the Performing Arts (WAAPA). Recently Samantha was seconded to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as Movement Director for The Jungle Book.

The Astronaut Trailer from Sam Chester on Vimeo.

Curriculm Vitae