Every March, the Grand Rapids Ballet presents Jumpstart, a performance of dances created by and for the company members, and it’s a hotly anticipated fan favorite every season—for good reason.
This year, the two-hour performance offered 14 different world premiere works made by 14 different choreographers. It was a thrilling, eclectic mix of styles, emotions, music, costumes, lighting, all expertly put together seamlessly, and with only two weeks’ rehearsal. This year’s Jumpstart was, indeed, “a celebration of the creative process,” as Artistic Director James Sofranko described it in his opening night curtain speech.
One dance flowed into the next with just enough transition time for wild applause from the audience, and there was a palpable sense of excitement as the lights went up, every time. From romantic, classical ballet to apocalyptic hip-hop inflected modern, with plenty of humor, intensity, levity, beauty, and fun, these disparate pieces added up to more than the sum of their parts, though each piece stood alone magnificently.
The show opened with Yuka Oba-Muschiana’s “Sinfonia Concertante”, a Balanchine-inspired romantic ballet full of wonderful musicality, quick foot work, gorgeous backbends and arabesques, and several little pas de quatres in addition to pas de deux.
Other romantic, classical ballet works included Sam Epstein’s enchanting “Opera Intermezzi” with incredible partnering work—breathtaking gravity-defying balances and lifts from Claudia Rhett and Nathan Young; and James Cunningham’s passionate “Red Sky in Morning” a near-complete, very athletic ballet in itself, reminiscent of “Don Quixote” but completely original with women in red dresses en pointe and men with button-down shirts wide open.
More musical theatre-inspired, narrative-driven pieces were also a hit and gave the dancers an opportunity to more overtly flex their acting muscles with strong characters. In Rowan Allegra’s delightful “Friday Night at the Last Chance Saloon” there was more than a little Jerome Robbins influence as three cowboys tumbled in slow motion off chairs and two-step glided and high kicked across the stage with swagger and Sarah Marley gorgeously danced with and fell into their arms from a table. Likewise, in Ahna Lipchik’s flirty, 1950s “Big Feelings”, Claudia Rhett seductively toyed with four men dressed in black set to Nancy Wilson’s “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am.”
A couple of distinctive pas de deux also made a lasting impression, including Josuè Justiz’s dramatic “a/conversation” that began and ended with a large, square center spot light, Julian Gan and Rena Takahashi emerging with intensity from chairs on opposite sides of the light; and Stevie Amthor’s “Throes”, that makes violence beautiful as Anna Leong and Leena Wheeler hugged, lifted, glided, wrestled and tumbled, creating compelling tension in the space between them, interpreting Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song” anew.
And several of the most innovative, moving pieces of the night defied definition. Ruthie Dalby set “As Long As I Am Here”, like a sexy drill team sequence in a film or a slow-motion night at the club, to Daft Punk; in McKenna Ulbrick’s mesmerizing “Duality”, a pair en pointe made beautiful shapes with their bodies, and two became five in this atmospheric, acrobatic ballet; and Julian Gan’s enormous, angsty, incredibly intricate “Chaordic” used 33 dancers to articulate just how stunning a zombie apocalypse could look if it were actual organized chaos.
No matter what style of dance they perform their movement emerges from a foundation of classical technique, and the sky is the limit in terms of what the Grand Rapids Ballet can do. This year’s Jumpstart shows yet again just how how accomplished this extraordinary company of dancers—and choreographers—is.
Jumpstart 2025
Grand Rapids Ballet
March 21-23
https://grballet.com/24-25-season/
