DANCER HIGHLIGHT: Jordan Veit
Principal Artist Jordan Veit | By Beau Pearson
Principal Artist Jordan Veit learned about dance through an outreach program led by the Pacific Northwest Ballet School in Seattle. They regularly visited his elementary school and taught students the basics of ballet. The instructor mentioned to Veit’s parents that their son showed potential in the art form, so they enrolled him in a ballet class once a week. Veit quickly made friends and was cast in the PNB’s The Nutcracker.
Later, when he attended a Summer Intensive program in his early teens, he saw older students looking at potential careers in dance. “I decided then that if I really wanted to do that, I needed to kick it into gear by working as hard as I can every day,” said Veit. “That was a big mental shift for me. I was very fortunate to grow up at a school like PNB, similar to the students at the Ballet West Academy, because I had role models that were full-time professionals as a dancer.”
The rest is history. He joined Ballet West II in 2012, was promoted into the main Company a year later, and was promoted to Principal Artist in 2022. During his time with Ballet West, he has danced the leading roles of Romeo in Smuin’s Romeo + Juliet, Lensky in Cranko’s Onegin, the Sugar Plum Cavalier in Christensen’s The Nutcracker, Frederick in Stevenson's Dracula, and Prince Desire in Sklute’s The Sleeping Beauty, among others. He has also guested with Royal Danish Ballet, Houston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Los Angeles Ballet, and Utah Metropolitan Ballet.
Looking back on this past season, performing Frederick in Dracula was his favorite. “It was one of my first times revisiting a principal role in a full-length ballet,” said Veit. “It was great to actually see that I have grown so much since then because I remember it was such a challenge to get it to the stage last time. Jenna [Rae Herrera] and I put in so many extra hours of rehearsing and trying to feel confident. With our first pas de deux rehearsal this time, it wasn’t hard. We weren’t in the physical condition to perform it right away, but everything came back like riding a bike and that was special.”
Veit says keeping up energy and athleticism through the busy season is about having the right attitude. “You don’t slack or tell yourself you’re tired, because then you will be tired,” he says. “It’s all about the mind and the more you commit to giving it everything, the more energy you’ll feel. There are some days that you need to be kind to yourself, and take breaks, the key is to stay present in the studio and not in terms of, ‘I still have three more programs to go before I get a break.’ You have to just think about what you’re rehearsing today and before you know it, the day is done.”
Follow Jordan on Instagram @jdveit.