Dancing her way to the top

Clarice Ordaz might as well have been dreaming about a day when she got selected as the top dancer on the West Coast in a national competition and about getting selected to dance in a championship in Australia.

But it’s not a dream.

On Saturday, the 17-year-old will travel to Australia, where she’ll be performing among dancers from around the world.

“I feel very privileged,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Clarice is good enough to audition for the Juilliard School in New York, and is also trying to get into Chapman University. She will be auditioning in Dallas on Feb. 9 for admission to Juilliard.

“I really want to go to Chapman; it has a great dance program,” Clarice said. “If I got accepted to Juilliard, I probably would go, but Juilliard is so selective. I want to try hard; I want to push myself and I want to do it.”

Clarice has been attending the West Coast School of the Arts in Costa Mesa since she was 9. The Whittier resident’s parents made a family decision years ago to support Clarice’s talent.

“We knew she was a good dancer, but we thought she could be a better dancer with the proper training,” said Clarice’s mother, Carmen Ordaz.

They chose West Coast because of the quality of its dance instruction, Ordaz said.

Their investment has paid off. This year, Clarice entered into the Rainbow Connection’s West Coast competition and was selected as the competition’s senior dancer of the year. It automatically gave her the chance to represent Rainbow Connection and the United States on the world stage.

In Australia, Clarice will be performing three solos and two duets.

Clarice’s solo performances are Open, which is a contemporary dance, Lyrical, which is classical, and Jazz, which is musical theater. Her duets will be musical theater and contemporary, she said.

A dancer’s life involves a lot of sore limbs, aches and pains, Clarice said. But it’s all worth it for her.

“I just feel completely free and this is just something I love and it’s kind of like a job I always wanted to do,” she said. “Even though it’s hard work, I want to be the best I can be.”

One day Clarice hopes to be a choreographer, where she’ll create her own twist on dancing.