Organizations/Performing Group:

UP Dance Company, co-artistic director, present
Body Archive, Founder and co-facilitator 2020-Present

Awards and Recognition:

FINALIST, Korea International Modern Dance Competition (Choreographer) 2016
1ST PLACE, Sayaw Pinoy: The National Commission for Culture and the Arts National Dance Competition, Contemporary Category (Performer) 2013 and 2014
FINALIST, 1ST CCP National Ballet Competition, Senior Category
1ST RUNNER-UP, Dancelebration Avenue Dance Competition, Contemporary
Category, De La Salle University (Performer) 2014
1ST RUNNER-UP, Wifi Body Festival New Choreographer’s Competition, 2012
AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD, Wifi Body Dance Festival New Choreographer’s Competition, 2012

Distinction, Royal Academy of Dance Intermediate Ballet Examination, 2012
Highly Commended, Australian Conservatoire of Ballet Pre-Primary Examination 1997


Sarah Maria Samaniego is a dancer, choreographer and teacher in-dance. She started training and performing full-length productions in classical ballet with Ballet Manila from 1999-2008. She was mentored by the Philippines' “Ballerina of the People” Lisa-Macuja-Elizalde, Russian Ballet Master Victor Savaliev, as well as the eminent Russian teacher Tatiana Udalenkova of the Academy of Russian Ballet, and choreographer and People’s artist of Russia Sergei Vikulov.

As an Artistic Collaborator of the UP Dance Company since 2008, she has essayed vast major roles and choreographed dance works for the company's repertoire in the Philippines and abroad including Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, China, Japan, Korea and France. She is a prize winner of the 2012 Wifi Body Dance Festival New Choreographers Competition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines with her work "Nalaruan" (In Playing) which was featured at the 2013 Yokohama Dance Competition X Dance Showcase in Yokohama, Japan. In 2014 and 2018, she attended the Southeast Asian Choreolab and Dancing in Place hosted by Rimbun Dahan Space organized by the World Dance Alliance Asia-Pacific in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is also a recipient of the 2018 Asia, Africa & Latin America Dance Exchange residency program, and the 2020 Cultural Partnership Initiative Online Training Program hosted by the Seoul Section of the International Dance Council CID-UNESCO, organized as a part of Cultural Partnership Initiative by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Seoul South, Korea. She is the first Filipino choreographer to be featured at the Tangente 2019 Winter-Spring Season in Montreal, Canada with her research-based work “Paagos” (Drift).

Currently, she is also a dance faculty at the Guang Ming College, UP College of Music Extension Program, and the Center for Movement and Music Studio. As a dance practitioner and educator, she is finding and harnessing the potential of dance and dancers to express truths in myriad ways and forms.