Studying to be a Triple Threat at Ole Miss

She may yet be in her freshman year at the University of Mississippi, (affectionately known as Ole Miss), but Dori Meifert knows where she’s headed the moment she graduates.

“I plan on moving to New York right away, getting an apartment, auditioning all the time and having a job on the side,” Meifert said.

It’s a specific plan—and it’s still a few years away—but it’s one born out of a nearly lifelong passion for performing.

“Ever since she was little, she said, ‘All I want to do is perform,’” her mother Wendy Meifert said. 

Born to Dance

Almost as soon as Dori could walk, she began to dance. And the 2011 graduate hasn’t stopped since. 

“I have memories of sports I’ve played before I danced but I’ve basically been doing it forever,” Dori Meifert said. “There’re not too many times I can remember when I wasn’t involved in dance.”

She joined Edina’s Victoria Dance Productions at age four, made the competition team by first grade, and continued with the studio until she graduated, adding Edina Hornettes and dance team in high school as well. She also acted at Stages in Hopkins and worked on developing her natural vocal talent. Dori took a break—if you can call it that—from dance team her senior year to participate in chamber choir, stretching her vocal abilities in addition to her physical ones. But whatever she was doing, Meifert’s first love has always been dance—especially tap. 

And it’s in tap that Dori Meifert is beginning to make a name for herself at Ole Miss. At a school of more than 20,000 students, Meifert is the sole freshman in a 14-member tap ensemble, which is part of the university’s Mississippi: The Dance Company. 

Finding a Home Away from Home

Meifert said she chose Ole Miss for its performance opportunities, because it’s her father’s alma mater and because it wasn'tt too close to home.  

“I knew that I wanted to go away because, as much as I love Minnesota, I wouldn’t grow up,” Dori Meifert said. “I didn’t want the option to go home and have my mom do my laundry.”

At Ole Miss, Meifert’s goal is to train to become a triple threat: an accomplished dancer, signer and actor. For good measure, she’s also getting into comedy—and she didn’t get that impulse from her mother. 

“She has this idea that she wants to do stand up,” Wendy Meifert said. “It’s the last thing I would ever do in a trillion years.”

But for Dori, it’s fitting. The stage is her second home.

“She wants to be working, she wants to be performing,” Wendy Meifert said. 

And it’s the performing—not fame and fortune—that’s the goal. 

“If I were to become famous, that’d be awesome, but my main goal is just to be on stage and doing what I love with my life,” Dori Meifert said. “To me, that’s way more of a reward than anything.”

For that reward, Dori Meifert said she’s willing to fill her schedule, working and rehearsing and challenging herself as much as necessary, just as she’s done since she was little. 

“She’s worked really hard for everything,” Wendy Meifert said. “That’s what my husband and I are most proud of.”