Yolanda Jordan

Delta Festival Ballet: Principal (ca. 1985-1990)
Festival Dance Theatre (1985)
Indianapolis Ballet Theatre: Guest (ca. 1985, 1990)
Corpus Christi Ballet (1986)
Indianapolis Dance Company: Guest (ca. 1989-1990)
Ballet Austin (1991)
San Francisco Ballet (1992-1998)

Yolanda Faye Jordan was born ca. 1967 to William and June Jordan in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jordan began her ballet training at age nine at Butler University’s Jordan College of Fine Arts, where she was a scholarship student and danced for the Jordan Ballet Company, and the Shortbridge School of Fine Arts. She graduated from Broad Ripple High School.

In 1984, Jordan was awarded a full scholarship to the Dance Theatre of Harlem School, where she performed Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla and Arthur Mitchell’s Holberg Suite.

As a member of the Delta Festival Ballet in New Orleans, where she danced ca. 1985-1990, Texas’ The Monitor called her “exceptionally talented” and she performed the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker.

In 1985, Jordan toured with the Indianapolis Ballet Theatre and danced with Festival Dance Theatre. She was said to have made an “impressive debut” that year in Charla Genn’s Three Piano Preludes at Jacob’s Pillow, where she also performed as a fairy and in the pas de trois in Sleeping Beauty. Her performances in this production were also highly regarded: The Indianapolis Star stated that the “youthful ballerina has a serene elegance that is beautiful to watch,” and The Indianapolis News called her “radiant” with technique that was “clean, precise and effortless and her movement remarkably graceful.”

The following year, Jordan joined Corpus Christi Ballet in Texas.

As a guest artist for the Indianapolis Dance Company in 1989 and 1990, Jordan performed a Raymonda variation, a tap number, and a piece by IDC’s choreographer Gregory Hancock.

In addition to dancing as a guest artist with Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, where she was said to be “captivating” in Coppelia, Jordan served as a principal with Delta Festival Ballet in 1990. The following year, she danced with Ballet Austin, performing in pieces like Lambros Lambrou’s Adieu, in which she “stole the show,” before joining San Francisco Ballet in 1992 (Austin American-Statesman). With SFB, Jordan performed roles such as a Spanish dancer in The Nutcracker, and she left the company in 1998.

In both 1996 and 1998, Jordan performed as a guest artist in La.: Dance Alive!, a show featuring dancers with relations to Louisiana.

While with San Francisco Ballet, Jordan met her future husband, bass player and founding member of San Francisco Ballet Orchestra Steve D’Amico, whom she married in 1997.

Jordan is a recipient of numerous awards, especially in her teenage years. She was the winner of the $1,000 Rose Winski Scholarship for classical dancers in Michigan City in 1982 and the $1,000 Margaret Sear Rosenblith Memorial Award in Dance in 1983.

As a 1985 Presidential Scholar, Jordan was recognized by President Ronald Reagan, with him saying, “Yolanda has mastered the arduous and demanding technique of classical ballet,” and performed for the president at the Kennedy Center.

That year, the young dancer also received $1,000 from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, was a 1985 ARTS Awardee, and was a finalist for an award from the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts.

She has additionally been named a finalist in the Children’s Museum’s Prelude Awards, 1990 “Entertainer of the Year” by New Orleans Entertainment Magazine, and winner of second place in the career award competition of the National Society of Arts and Letters (Indiana Chapter). In 1990, Jordan was selected to move onto Round II for the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi.

Yolanda Jordan (center) as a young dancer, photo via *The Indianapolis Star*, 1978.

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Yolanda Jordan

Delta Festival Ballet: Principal (ca. 1985-1990)
Festival Dance Theatre (1985)
Indianapolis Ballet Theatre: Guest (ca. 1985, 1990)
Corpus Christi Ballet (1986)
Indianapolis Dance Company: Guest (ca. 1989-1990)
Ballet Austin (1991)
San Francisco Ballet (1992-1998)

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Yolanda Jordan

Delta Festival Ballet: Principal (ca. 1985-1990) Festival Dance Theatre (1985) Indianapolis Ballet Theatre: Guest (ca. 1985, 1990) Corpus Christi Ballet (1986) Indianapolis Dance Company: Guest (ca. 1989-1990) Ballet Austin (1991) San Francisco Ballet (1992-1998)

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Delta Festival Ballet: Principal (ca. 1985-1990)
Festival Dance Theatre (1985)
Indianapolis Ballet Theatre: Guest (ca. 1985, 1990)
Corpus Christi Ballet (1986)
Indianapolis Dance Company: Guest (ca. 1989-1990)
Ballet Austin (1991)
San Francisco Ballet (1992-1998)