Family Channel show the new home for Tottenham’s Jordan Clark

March 5, 2014 · 0 Comments

For Jordan Clark, the past few years have passed in a whirlwind of success. It all started with her winning the title of Canada’s favourite dancer on season four of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, but things didn’t slow down after that.

She’s done it all, from dancing, to singing and now acting on the hit Family Channel series The Next Step. After major success, the show is getting ready to launch its second season this Friday, March 7. And it’s not just the fans who are looking forward to it.

“Everything has gone up a notch…or three,” says Jordan. “The first season was amazing, and this season’s going to be incredible. All the dancing is so much better, the choreography, all the concepts, the story line of the whole show. People are going to cry, they’re going to laugh and they’re going to be very entertained.”

The show is a Canadian dance-drama, focusing on a group of elite dancers at The Next Step studio. Season two begins after the dance team from The Next Step studio has won the regional championships, but the dancers quickly find out that they have to re-audition for the nationals team.

“I’m excited to see what their reactions are with everything,” Jordan says of the fans.

She found out about the part through her agent, and went for a few auditions before the part was hers. When she landed the role, she was thrilled.

“I freaked out! I was ecstatic, obviously, because this was really my first actor role. So it was like winning “So You Think You Can Dance” all over again,” she says.

The second season has been even more physically demanding than the first, and Jordan worked hard to stay in shape. Ballet classes, she says, are a major part of her strength training.

“This year was definitely more intense dancing wise, a lot more intense,” Jordan says. “And it’s hard because you don’t just do one take of your dance routine, you do multiple.”

Each dance routine is performed several times to film all the angles needed for the final cut that is seen on T.V., but even the performance levels have to be larger than life, Jordan says. It can be exhausting.

“The camera sucks like 20 per cent of your energy out of you, so you have to do it like twenty times bigger than you’re actually doing it in real life.”

Even though the show has a lot of fans who are dancers themselves, there are a lot of non-dancers who also enjoy the show. Jordan says the themes and problems portrayed in the show through the dance studio can also apply to other areas in life and other sports.

“One of the cool things about it is we’re motivating all these kids to go and exercise and dance and be healthy, be active,” says Jordan. “And I think they’re going to go absolutely insane when they see this season, it’s so amazing!”

Her character on the show is an acro dancer, but in real life, Jordan has had extensive training in many styles of dance, including ballet, contemporary, hip hop tap and jazz.

Jordan first started dancing at age five, but it was what she calls an “accidental” start. All she really wanted to learn was how to do a back flip. But instead of gymnastics, her mother signed her up for dance. The costumes, tutus and makeup went completely against Jordan’s tomboy style, but she took to it quickly and soon grew to love dance.

And it’s helped her in more than just her career.

“I’m not a very emotional person, so I feel like when I dance I can get all my emotions out.”

Acting didn’t come so naturally for Jordan though, who was actually afraid to do it when she was younger.

“I had a lot of trouble with reading and writing as a kid, so I never wanted to put myself in a situation where I had to read out loud in front of people,” says Jordan. “I got really nervous and really scared, and that’s why it was so easy for me to express myself through my dancing.”

This show is her first acting role, but Jordan is no stranger to the screen. She has appeared as a dancer in Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam and in Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, both T.V. movies. Having lines is a completely different experience for

Jordan.

She got into acting more as she got older, taking some acting classes and slowly getting comfortable with herself in front of an audience.

“Dancing is acting, just through your body,” says Jordan. “So I just had to learn how to portray that through my voice. And it’s been great.”

Seeing herself on camera has taken some getting used to, though, and she is always critical of her performances. Being a perfectionist, it can be frustrating to see her mistakes captured in the final cuts, but watching the episodes can also help her improve for the next time. Frustration, she says, is all part of learning.

“I laugh at myself, that’s all you can do really.”

People often recognize Jordan when she is out in public, something she thinks is probably because of her distinctive long, red hair. She says it’s still strange to be known, but it’s really nice to meet the fans of the show in person.

Since finishing the So You Think You Can Dance competition, Jordan has also worked on stage in the recent Ross Petty production of The Little Mermaid in Toronto, and is currently in Switzerland performing in Art on Ice, where she is dancing with Olympic skaters.

“I put so much work in and I’m still putting more work in, because even though yes I did win So You Think You Can Dance and I have done these things, there’s always someone better and there’s always somebody to learn from,” says Jordan. “So there’s never any stopping from here, you’ve gotta keep training, you’ve gotta keep updating yourself.”

So what’ next for this rising star?

“For right now it’s kind of one step at a time and I’m going to focus on training and dancing and acting and singing.”

Filming has wrapped for season two, and the show will air until January, 2015. Season two premiers with a special one-hour episode on Friday, March 7 at 7:30 p.m. on the Family Channel.

By Emily Wood