JIMMY ORRANTE is a recipient of a Choreography Award from the Princess Grace Foundation, dedicated to identifying and assisting emerging talent in the performing arts, as well as the Violetta Boft Memorial Award from BalletMet Columbus. Now in his fourteenth season as a BalletMet Company dancer, the Los Angeles native has attended the International Summer Workshop in Budapest, Hungary; studied modern dance in London; danced with England's Northern Ballet Theatre, Memphis Ballet, Nevada Dance Theatre among others, and is on faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Mr. Orrante has choreographed four works for BalletMet including Touch (2005) and Ad Infinitum (2007) as well as sections of Aladdin and Alice in Wonderland. He and his wife, former dancer Sonia Welker, have a young son, Isaac, and a daughter, Aiyana.

"[Orrante] presented fluid frolicking to Simon and Garfunkel songs with a particularly vivid female duo."
The New York Times, on Orrante's New York choreographic debut at the Joyce Theatre

"Jimmy Orrante's Emergence (which might describe his rapid development as a choreographer) also looked elegant in its separate duets brought seamlessly together at the close."
The Columbus Dispatch