
JORDAN RYDER
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & FOUNDER
ABOUT
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.
Off-broadway credits include "Singfeld! An Unauthorized Musical Parody About Nothing!" (Choreographer), "White Rose The Musical" (Choreographer), and "Faygele" (Assistant Director).
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, Ballet Hispanico, and The School at Peridance.
Thank you for visiting RyderDance.com!


Artist Statement
I’m interested in bringing storytelling into contemporary movement and elevating traditional stories through interpersonal physicality. My work is like pen on paper, except the line drawn by the pen is wet and slightly smudged across the page, creating gradients that eb and flow between structure and fantasy. The work is grounded in the movement of physical structures, guiding the eye into a dance of its own that seeps into the nerves of the body. Characterization and choreography saturate the foundation creating something uniquely personal to the audience in the room - with movements fleeting as fast as they are arriving, the work lives freely in the present moment and lives on through memory and interpretation.
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.
FEATURED PROJECTS
choreographic RESUME
COMMISSIONS • LIVE PERFORMANCE
TITLE
"GARAGE" (2022)
"Man is Born" (2020)
"recess" (2019)
# MINUTES / # DANCERS
10 minutes / 7 dancers
17 minutes / 6 dancers
7 minutes / 16 dancers
CITY
Atlanta, Georgia
New York, New York
Lincolnshire, Illinois
COMMISSIONS • FILM
TITLE
"BACKSEAT" (2022)
"Kaleidoscope" (2020)
"Bromance" (2019)
"From Artist to Artist" (2019)
COMPANY / SCHOOL
New York University Tisch
School of the Arts
Season 3, Episode 5
# MINUTES / # DANCERS
4 minutes / 2 dancers
10 minutes / 8 dancers
9 minutes / 40 dancers
2 minutes / 2 dancers
OFF BROADWAY
TITLE
"White Rose, The Musical" (January 2024)
"Faygele" (2024)
"White Rose, The Musical" Workshop (2023)
"Singfeld! An Unauthorized Parody Musical About Nothing!" (2023)
THEATER
Theater Row, Theater 3
TBC
Open Jar Studios
Jerry Orbach Theater
ROLE
Choreographer
Assistant Director
Choreographer
Choreographer
DIRECTOR
Will Nunziata
Will Nunziata
Will Nunziata
Marc David Wright
CITY
New York, New York
New York, New York
New York, New York
New York, New York
produced as RyderDance • live performance
TITLE
"HOMECOMING" (2023)
"nexus" (2022)
"The Illusion of Separateness" (2021)
"Rose Colored Lens" (2021)
"Once in a Blue Moon" (2021)
"(Part 4)" (2020)
"Through the Open Window" (2019)
"dnceDETOX" (2019)
"Railways" (2018)
"230" (2018)
"STEADFAST" (2018)
THEATER
The Tank Theater
Rose Nagelberg Theatre
Old Stone House
Old Stone House
Old Stone House
The Actors Fund
Dixon Place
The Duffy Theater
Martha Graham Theater
Triskelion Arts, NY
Loew's Jersey Theatre
# MINUTES / # DANCERS
45 minutes / 5 dancers
11 minutes / 6 dancers
16 minutes / 3 dancers
7 minutes / 1 dancer
5 minutes / 2 dancers
4 minutes / 3 dancers
17 minutes / 7 dancers
4 minutes / 2 dancers
15 minutes / 7 dancers
8 minutes / 4 dancers
8 minutes / 5 dancers
CITY
New York, New York
New York, New York
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn, New York
New York, New York
New York, New York
Brooklyn, New York
New York, New York
Brooklyn, New York
Jersey City, New Jersey
produced as RyderDance • FILM
TITLE
"NEXUS II" (2023)
"N(ONE)" (2021)
"Infinite Sketch" (2021)
"SAFETY DANCE" (2020)
# MINUTES / # DANCERS
11 minutes / 6 dancers
3 minutes / 3 dancers
3 minutes / 2 dancers
3 minutes / 15 dancers
AWARDS
Official Selection for the New York Arthouse Film Fest
GENRE
Open Track Intermediate / Advanced Contemporary (Professional Level)
Contemporary (Ages 7-18), Leaps & Turns (Ages 7-18)
YEARS
2022 - PRESENT
2021 - PRESENT
Guest Classes/Workshops include National High School Dance Festival (2023) PA; Emotions Physical Theater (2022) NY; Fall for Fall Dance Festival (2022) ATL; New York University Tisch School of the Arts (2020) NYC; Adlai E. Stevenson High School (2020, 2021) IL; Bayonne High School (2020) NJ; among others
EDUCATION
New York University Tisch School of the Arts
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Extensions Dance Company
Bachelor or Fine Arts In Dance; Minor in Sociology and Minor in Business of Entertainment, Media, and Technology
Scholarship Program under the direction of Claire Bataille
Under the direction of Lizzie MacKenzie
Class of 2018
2012-2015
2011-2015