Anyone who loves dance knows there’s a special alchemy that transforms dancers’ expressivity when they perform with live music. There’s a heightened musicality, yes, but also potential for greater aliveness and responsiveness.

When you get older, it’s hard to remember what it was like to be a teen. Meanwhile, teenagers can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a full-grown adult. Sometimes you just have to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

Step back into the late 1800s and follow a group of rowdy newspaper delivery boys and their misadventures in New York City as they fight to have a better future.

With house lights up, white feathers float, twirl, glide, dive, and crash onto the black floor during the intermission. So begins the invitation into the hypnotic movement of Grand Rapids Ballet’s “Extremely Close,” the titular and closing piece of their current production, an elegant mixed bill of classical and contemporary dramatic ballet that draws inspiration from literature, Americana and inventive forms.