PROVIDENCE, R. I. — A former St. Paul ballet dancer who was seriously injured in a Rhode Island hit-and-run over the summer has returned to the stage. Festival Ballet Providence dancer Jordan Nelson…
PROVIDENCE, R. I. — A former St. Paul ballet dancer who was seriously injured in a Rhode Island hit-and-run over the summer has returned to the stage.
Festival Ballet Providence dancer Jordan Nelson was riding his bike in June when he was struck by a car. He suffered skull fractures and a broken clavicle. WLNE-TV reports doctors told Nelson he’d never dance again but he wouldn’t accept that as an answer.
Nelson said the first place he visited after being released from the hospital was the dance studio. He said he danced instead of undertaking physical therapy.
He said he had to reteach himself and “rebuild from square one,” but he’s stronger than ever.
The hit-and-run driver has not been caught.
Nelson’s family moved to Minnesota in 2005, and he enrolled at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists his junior year of high school.
He began training at St. Paul’s Classical Ballet Academy when he was 18 and two years later joined Ballet Chicago. He also worked in Madison, Wis., and Columbia, S. C., before joining the Providence company last year.
“By some miracle, he surprised us all,” Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Misha Djuric told WLNE. “He surprised the doctors, he surprised us.”
