Dance Faculty

Jennifer Camp is an Associate Professor of dance and has directed the dance program since 2003. She currently teaches Ballet, Pointe, and Contemporary, Choreography, Anatomy and Kinesiology for Dancers, and Injury Prevention and Conditioning for dancers. She is recognized as a dynamically diverse performer, encouraging educator, and innovative choreographer, and has more than 25 years of professional experience in the field.

Since her arrival at Pacific, she has implemented essential courses and recruited prestigious guest artists and dance companies every year and established the dance major in 2012.  In 2004, Jennifer founded Pacific’s university performing company, Pacific Dance Ensemble (PDE), where she resides as the artistic director of the company.

Originally from Atlantic City, New Jersey, Jennifer earned her BA in dance at Arizona State University with an emphasis on dance education and dance science, and an MFA in dance from the University of California, Irvine. She has choreographed and taught nationally in pre-professional schools and universities across the U.S. and she has presented her choreography at the national level.

Jennifer is a Franklin Method Educator and Certified Fascia Trained and is currently completing her Pilates certification.  She is passionate about educating dancers on how to maintain healthy minds and bodies so they may have long sustaining healthy lives inside dance and out.

James Healey, a native of Grants Pass, Oregon, received a BA from the University of Nevada–Las Vegas. James has been an adjunct professor at Pacific University (Forest Grove, Oregon) and an assistant coach and choreographer for the Canby High School Dance Team (Canby, Oregon) for over a decade. James is primarily a modern and contemporary choreographer, often a choreographer for the Pacific Dance Ensemble, and has led the Canby High School Dance Team to several Oregon State Athletic Association (OSAA) state championships in the Show Division, as well as Modern and Contemporary Category championship awards.  James finds the path that dancers take from high school environments to college refinement a rewarding and beautiful journey to mentor and guide.

Before returning to Oregon in 2013, James was a founding member of Shen Wei Dance Arts in New York (2000), where he served as a lead dancer and rehearsal director for over ten years. During his time with Shen Wei, James experienced the creation and refinement of Shen Wei’s “natural body development technique” and was among the original cast for many of Shen Wei’s groundbreaking works, including Near the Terrace, Rite of Spring, and Connect Transfer. James has been sought out nationally for his excellence in teaching and choreography. Other teaching engagements have included dance faculty at the Governor's School of North Carolina, guest artist at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Rutgers University, and Reed College in Oregon. Other professional performance credits include dancer and acrobat in Imagine at the Luxor in Las Vegas, Nevada, dancer with Malashock Dance in San Diego, California, dancer with Skinner/Kirk Dance, performer at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art's TBA Festival with Ten Tiny Dances, and a New Expressive Works Artist Residency.

A native of Hong Kong, Karen Lam received both Master's of Music degrees in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the University of Oregon, where she studied with Dean Kramer and Claire Wachter. She also holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she studied with Betty Oberacker. A soloist and a collaborative pianist, Ms. Lam has appeared in the International Workshops in Austria, Oregon Mozart Players, Palomar College Concert Series, and the DeRosa Chamber Players. She has performed in Masterclasses given by Stephen Hough, Fernando Laires, Martin Katz, and Rosalyn Tureck. Ms. Lam is an active member of the Oregon Music Teachers Association, where her students have won numerous honors and awards in the Pacific Northwest. She was the founding Artistic Director of the Portland Conservatory of Music and currently serves as ballet pianist at Pacific University, Oregon Ballet Theatre, The Portland Ballet, and Northwest Dance Project. 

Andrea Parson studied at Northwest Conservatory of Dance under the directorship of Anita Mitchel. She continued to train at the Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and Loyola Marymount University, where she received a BA in dance. After graduating, she joined Northwest Dance Project in Portland, Oregon. For 11 years she performed nationally and internationally, as well as choreographed contemporary dance works for the project company and students.

Over the past three years, Andrea has specialized in solo, dance-theater work. In the summer of 2019, she attended Dell'arte International School of Physical theater where she studied mask, voice, and ensemble building practices. Since 2014 she has collaborated with various Portland multimedia artists to create original work for film and live theater.