Breaking Out
When you’re trying to find your social footing in the wild world of high school, sometimes destiny dictates you take those feet to a whole other circle—one you invent yourself. Jordan Boyd did just that when he decided breakdancing was his path of choice.
“It was such a small, exclusive club,” he said of his early years getting into dance at Whittier Middle School in Sioux Falls. “Everyone was either on the football team or the basketball team. With this, it was just us three. It was great to be a part of something so special.”
That penchant for team sports was a thru-line in Boyd’s family growing up. Both his brothers and dad were athletes, but his status as the family’s first dancer has been wholeheartedly embraced.
“I’m kind of the black sheep,” he said. “They all love it—they’re pretty supportive. I’m the only one in my family that does this, and I like getting to say that. I like being unique that way.”
Thanks to a chance encounter with a friend of his, Boyd started to learn the moves necessary to be a competitive breakdancer when he was 14. And once seventh grade rolled around, he’d formed a crew that he took all the way to high school.
“I loved getting to dance with my crew,” he said. “Those times were pretty much what built my foundation for how I dance and who I am today. I wouldn’t be the teacher or have the role I have today without that.”
It was there that Washington High School’s High-Steppers dance team gave him an even more official home to hone his skills and engage a spirit of competition.
“I started out breakdancing, but when I got to high school, that was my peek into the choreography world,” Boyd said. “What you see Justin Bieber or Justin Timberlake do—that’s my world. That’s what I enjoy being a part of.
“I understand it and know what I’m looking at. I love all forms of dance. It’s great to be around and great to watch—it’s all about energy.”
His drive culminated in 2014, when the studio with which he competes and now teaches, Champion Legacy Dance Academy, snagged a world championship at Dance Worlds in Orlando, Fla.
“I still wear the ring pretty much every day,” Boyd said. “To this day, my team and I are the only hip-hop male dancers who have won this from South Dakota. That was an amazing moment. We celebrated for days—we were kings for a year.”
The universality of dance has kept Boyd active in the space locally since then, focusing his efforts as teacher and coach to dancers of all ages in the community.
“Anywhere in the world where culture is, there’s some form of dance,” he said. “To be such an advocate of something universal and unifying like that is great. When I teach, when I take a class, when I get to witness it—it’s just absolutely incredible. I love that role.”
Some of Boyd’s most recent efforts in the local scene include collaborating with Headlights Theater this past summer on their Park & Art series of outdoor song-and-dance performances, pictured below. “I had so much fun doing that. We were able to create this performance together—the band and singers were incredible. I’d only ever performed with dancers before, so for us to all interact like that was so fun.”
When it comes to inspiring the next generation of dance talent, Boyd is quick to cite his dedication as a primary factor in being successful as a performing artist.
“You need to stay hungry and keep at this,” he said. “It’ll be a long, stressful road, but stay persistent. There’s no way at all that if you stay in this and keep training that it won’t pay off in the end. We weren’t natural dancers. We trained and trained.
“There’s no way you won’t become that dancer you want to be.”