A Day in the Life: Dancer Jordan Livermon

Jordan Livermon, one of this year’s six graduating dance majors, has been dancing since the age of four. After speaking with her it was obvious that her love and passion for dance would take her to amazing places, whether it be in the spotlight or pulling the strings from off stage.

Dancing since she was a small child, Jordan could have easily gotten trapped in a hobby that she was unhappy with. This was not the case.

“… It was my parents (who got me into dance), but I stuck with it because (there was) something about the freedom it gave me with understanding myself and my body,” she said. “Not many things can let you use your body to express yourself.”

She is preparing her piece for the Spring Senior Concert, “6 in the City,” which debuts this weekend. It is obvious that she is proud of her accomplishment and her fellow seniors’ hard work.

“Each of our pieces are … taking a look at ourselves and our growth as an individual since being here … (“6 in the City”) is just a really nice sense of everything that happens here at VCU,” she said. “It’s kind of cool that (the dances) all sort of tie into each other, which sort of happened out of nowhere.”

Graduating with only five girls is a blessing to Livermon. “It’s neat. We’ve been together for so long that we’ve sort of formed this family,” Livermon said. “It’s exciting to be going through and graduating with people you know so well.”

Being experienced as a dancer, and recently as a choreographer, she realized that she had an interest in both.

“As a choreographer (I love) sharing my work with the audience and seeing the dancers who are performing my piece. It’s great to see how they fulfill your idea and share that with the audience … Performing for myself …

it’s like you’re almost feeding (the audience) things, telling them a story. You’re telling them where to look without using words. It’s an amazing feeling,” she said.

Livermon has seen many dancers grow and blossom in her years at VCU, and she knows what it takes to do so. “I would tell (future dancers) not to be afraid of it. Not to be afraid of themselves, not to be afraid of the unknown … It’s okay to mess up, it’s okay to fall,” she said.

Scott Putman’s “Other Side of Shadow,” which she and a group of other dancers performed at the Student/ Faculty Concert and the American College Dance Festival in Miami, was one of her favorite pieces.

“I was dancing in it and it just sort of clicked. Sometimes I feel like we got stuck … We’re trying so hard to think and remember steps, we just sort of lose that we’re really there just dancing. We need to give in to that,” she said.

Jordan Livermon’s piece “falling caught” will be one of the six performed this weekend at the Grace Street Theater (934 W. Grace St.). The concert will be April 24 through 26 at 8 p.m.

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