By James Sofranko, Artistic Director 

At Grand Rapids Ballet the dancers are back to it! Even though summer doesn’t officially end until September, the migration back to the studio signifies the changing of our season. With the dancers back in our midst and rehearsal music trickling throughout the offices, I feel a renewed energy for what lies ahead.  There is a lot of work to be done, including new repertoire to learn, new dancers to teach, and a tour of our beloved Nutcracker to Detroit for the first time.  This summer, our subscription numbers have continued to climb even higher, bucking national trends.  Now more than ever, in my ninth season of artistic, directorship, I feel the responsibility to deliver world-class ballet to our community and state. 

We welcome two new company members to our studios, Vinicius Lima and James Andrew Powell-Arellano.  Vinicius is Brazilian and comes to us from Salt Lake City’s Ballet West, where he was a soloist dancer and has performed for the past eight seasons.  James Andrew most recently was dancing with Milwaukee Ballet II, after having studied at San Francisco Ballet School, and this is his first main company position.  I am very excited to have them both here and I know that audiences will welcome their artistry on our stage. 

Every year also brings in a new group of apprentices and trainees, those younger dancers on the cusp of their career, who come to us from all over the country to work with our company and in our repertoire.  They come to us from numerous institutions and schools, including Pacific Northwest Ballet School, San Francisco Ballet School, Charlotte Ballet School, Indiana University, Butler University, Cincinnati Ballet School, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School.  You will see these dancers perform in Nutcracker and other larger works, and their passion for and dedication to dance is always inspiring. 

To kick things off, we are working on the program for our annual performance at Frederik Meijer Gardens, on August 25th.  This program will feature, among other ballets, Justin Peck’s and Sufjan Stevens’ In The Countenance of Kings, which received its GRB premiere last April and Revue Magazine called “exquisitely high-octane.”  With Peck’s signature athleticism and musicality – against Sufjan Stevens’ exhilarating score –  I tend to agree, and I am excited to see the dancers already pushing themselves further than before. 

Also for Meijer Gardens, I am bringing back my world premiere Yearning, with music by Ray LaMontagne, and I am choreographing an additional song for our apprentices and trainees to perform.  So even though the ballet has already had its official premiere, this additional song will constitute a new version, “Yearning 2.0” if you will.  Perhaps there are even more songs to add in future versions!  

Looking just a little further forward, we have our Gala on October 3rd and our company premiere of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Broken Wings later that month, inspired by the life and art of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It is the beginning of another year full of excitement, and the dancers are eager to perform again.  Thank you to all of our donors and subscribers who are cherished members of our GRB family. We plan to deliver to you another wonderful season of world-class ballet. 

Sincerely,

James Sofranko

Artistic Director