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JORDAN RYDER
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & FOUNDER
BIO
Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, Jordan Ryder is a NYC-based Dance Artist. Her early training began at LoMastro Performing Arts Academy under the direction of Loren LoMastro, Extensions Dance Company under the direction of Lizzie MacKenzie, and the scholarship program at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago under the direction of Claire Bataille. After high school, she moved to New York to attend New York University Tisch School of the Arts where she graduated in 2018 with a BFA in Dance and a double minor in Sociology and the Business of Entertainment, Media, and Technology. While at NYU, Jordan performed works by Crystal Pite, Paul Taylor, Pamela Pietro, and James Martin, among others. She also reinforced her dance training with several programs abroad in Israel, Ireland and Germany.
After graduation, Jordan continued her choreographic endeavors by forming her company, RyderDance. Since then, she has shown work throughout the tri-state area at notable venues including the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Loew's Jersey Theatre, the Martha Graham Studio Theater, to name a few, as well as throughout the United States in cities such as Atlanta and Chicago. She was a recipient of the 2018 Eryc Taylor Dance New Choreographer Grant and 2021 Brooklyn Arts Council Foundation Grant. In addition to RyderDance, Jordan has set original works on the Eryc Taylor Dance Company, NYU Tisch Dance Summer Residency students, Fall for Fall Dance Festival freelance dancers, Melange Dance Company, and One Day Dance. Her piece on the Eryc Taylor Dance Company was featured on PBS. Most recently, Jordan choreographed and directed her first sold-out RyderDance season in Manhattan in February 2023 and is currently choreographing the Off-Broadway production of "Singfeld! A Musical About Nothing!" which is set to premiere in June 2023 at the Jerry Orbach Theater in Times Square.
As a freelance dancer, Jordan has worked with Yoshito Sakuraba | Abarukas Dance, Guanglei Hui | Cross Move Dance Lab, Eryc Taylor Dance Company, and others. Additional campaigns and performances include Marc Jacob's Fall Collection 2021, John Ashford Shoes, and Sotheby's Auction House.
Outside of dance, Jordan is the Marketing and Media Coordinator at Peridance Center and the Digital Marketing Coordinator for Doug Varone & Dancers. She also teaches contemporary for Peridance Center and The School at Peridance.
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Artist Statement
My dance practice is inspired by the combination and juxtaposition of the natural human experience with humans’ physical and athletic capabilities. I contrast emotions with raw movement, left brain with right, and push the limits of instinct. In practice, this duality is housed in the dancers that I work with. Each artist possesses extensive physical training and discipline as well as emotional and spiritual selves, personalities and lives. The collision of these differing forces is the root of my motivation to move within myself and to choreograph on others. The interplay drives my research. I wrestle with the question of how physicality can define the human experience.
The movement language I am drawn to is one that explores this relationship between these concepts of physicality and humanity. I utilize and value my dancers’ training, athleticism and power as well as their everyday gestures, habits and personal lives, for I believe all are honest and meaningful. The dialogue between these truths creates rich and layered movement, complex power dynamics, relationships and connections between the dancers and a distinct energetic flow. This current that travels through space and rhythm creates the trajectory of my works. The vast amount of information and inspiration I receive from my dancers becomes shaped by this overall energetic flow that I see connecting and moving between them. The symbiosis of these concepts is the foundation of my creations.
My work spans across stage and screen. It dances on the edge of both the commercial and concert worlds, bringing them together, in order to create more spaces in which I can share my practice with others. I believe that bridging the gap between the audiences of commercial and concert dance is imperative to the future of the dance world. Therefore, I actively work to expand my creations’ reach and accessibility by exploring new audiences and mediums in order to nurture the life of live performance art. I believe dance can be expansive, exhilarating and personal all at once and that is something that should be shared and celebrated.