Clarice Ordaz is used to rejection.
Five years a professional dancer, she’s been passed over time after time for music videos, tours and awards shows.
She’s developed thick skin. Her passion for dance conquers all.
Ordaz said she enjoys the challenge. Auditions of all ilk litter her weekly schedule.
“It’s hard now dancing professionally,” said Ordaz, a Rosary Academy alum now living in North Hollywood. “If you haven’t done it forever, or don’t have the passion in you about it, it’s hard to get rejections, to not work for a bit.
“But for me, it’s worth it.”
Now 24, Ordaz has toured with Taylor Swift and the television show, “So You Think You Can Dance.”
She’s danced at the Grammys, the Billboard Music Awards and on Disney and Starz television shows.
She recently finished filming for the Hulu series, “East Los High,” a teen drama in its fourth season on the online streaming service.
For someone rejected so often, Ordaz sure keeps busy.
“Dancers, actors, people in entertainment, a lot of them have other jobs because it’s really hard to book (events),” she said. “It’s so much about your look, your personality. It’s not just talent. Even if you are talented, it doesn’t guarantee you’re going to be booked every month.
“It’s about sustaining yourself when you’re not working.”
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Ordaz’s mother danced in her teens and 20s. She passed her rhythm onto her daughter.
Raised in Whittier, Ordaz was the toddler who couldn’t stop moving. She never could sit still.
At the behest of coworkers, mother enrolled daughter in dance lessons. Ordaz learned quickly.
“I’ve always paid very close attention to detail,” she said. “It’s something I’ve always been very good at. I advanced pretty quickly, enough to where we needed to find new studios to match my learning.”
Ordaz found West Coast School of the Arts, an Orange County studio for advanced dancers.
In addition to lessons there, Ordaz took ballet classes in Anaheim. In 2006, she and several other incoming freshmen breathed life into Rosary’s dance team.
“I’ve been there 15 years, and she was probably one of the best students, the best dancers, I’ve had,” said Dan Sapp, the Fullerton school’s longtime coach. “Not only her dance-ability, but as a person. Her work ethic, just the respect she gave to myself and to the other teammates for all four years.
“Not once did I ever have to get on her, because she was so on it,” Sapp continued. “From Day 1, I knew she was going to make it somehow.”
As a senior, Ordaz danced for a Royals troupe that won big at the Universal Dance Association National Championships at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.
That same year, days after turning 18, she auditioned for “So You Think You Can Dance,” a show she said she’d watched for years.
An early cut, she said she wasn’t ready for the limelight, admitting: “I was 18 and naive, wide-eyed to the whole scenario.”
Ordaz graduated from Rosary in 2010 and enrolled at Long Beach State.
The summer before her sophomore year, she again tried out for “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Hundreds of hopefuls joined her.
“Me and some college friends went for fun,” Ordaz recalled. “We wanted to take it lightheartedly, not get as disappointed as we had the year before. We went, and we made it to the end. A month later, we were in Vegas.”
One of 150 dancers from across the country chosen to audition for season eight, Ordaz made preliminary cuts. She later made the top 20.
On the show, which aired in 2011, she danced several different styles, cracking the final 10 contestants.
For advancing that far, Ordaz later toured the country with the show’s other finalists. For two months the troupe performed in sports arenas that fit thousands.
Twenty years old at the time, Ordaz turned professional shortly after returning home.
“Being on that show was something I always, always wanted to do,” she said. “I was on Rosary’s homecoming court, and with your picture, they asked for a little description of you. I put that my ambition was to be in the top 20 of ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’”
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From a pool of 350 hopefuls, Ordaz and five other girls were chosen.
In 2013, Ordaz booked her greatest gig to date, and spent more than a year dancing behind Swift on her Red Tour. She performed more than 60 times nationwide, and stopped for international concerts in Australia, New Zealand, London, Germany and other major cities.
Ordaz returned to California in June 2014 and started auditioning again.
“When you’re gone for that long, things change tremendously in every part of the business,” she said.
Ordaz quickly booked a performance at the BET Awards. She booked commercials, television shows and other jobs that paid her rent.
She said she narrowly missed the cut for Derek and Julianne Hough’s Move Live on Tour crew, and last year, was passed over for season three of “East Los High.”
“The stars weren’t aligned,” she said.
Ordaz auditioned for the show again this year, and was chosen for a recurring role – her first speaking part.
Filming wrapped last month, and the show returns in July. Ordaz called her role “a big challenge.”
“She’s a director’s dream,” said Sapp, who from time to time has Ordaz teach master classes at his Westminster dance studio, Pace Elite. “She’s so detailed that whatever you teach her, she’s so detailed at it, you’re drawn to her. She does exactly what you want, what you need. She has that much focus.
“That appeals to anybody,” Sapp continued. “She has so much heart and soul in what she does, and she really gets along with everybody.”
Twice a week, Ordaz mentors aspiring dancers of all ages at West Coast School of the Arts.
The five other days, she’s auditioning.
“Some people choose to go out only for stuff they’re good at,” she said. “I choose to go out for everything. … If I don’t get it, I let it go and move on.”
Ordaz said her booking bucket list consists of one thing: music videos.
She also wants to do something else:
“I really want to tour again,” she said. “A lot of people don’t like touring. They don’t like the long bus rides, lugging bags all the way up stairs. They don’t like the long nights. I loved it all. I miss traveling in general too. That’s something I want to do even if I’m not dancing.
“Luckily I’ve been able to dance in so many different countries,” she continued. “I want to do it again. Dance and travel.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-7724 or bwhitehead@ocregister.com
