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Little mortal jump

Choreography

Alejandro Cerrudo

Composer

Various

Music

Beirut (“A Call to Arms” and “La Banlieue”), Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire (“Beware”), Alexandre Desplat (“See How They Fall—Dans Les Champs De Ble” and “A Self-made Hero—Theme de Heroes”), Philip Glass (“Glassworks/Analog: Orange Mountain Music Archive: Closing”), Hans Otte (“Wassermannmusik), Max Richter (“The Haunted Ocean 5” and “November”), Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan (“Fawn”)

Costume Design

Branimira Ivanova

Lighting Design

Michael Korsch

Scenic Design

Alejandro Cerrudo

Staging

Ana Lopez
Pablo Piantino

Running Time

26 minutes

Premiere

March 15, 2012
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

PNB Premiere

March 18, 2016

The 2016 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Alejandro Cerrudo’s Little mortal jump was generously underwritten by Jeffrey and Susan Brotman.

Little mortal jump, resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo’s tenth piece for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, is a bubbling blend of different styles and genres that distills into a fluid, cohesive whole. As a dance, it fuses the technicality of movement, the theatricality of the stage, and the dark humor inherent in relationships. As an experience, Cerrudo aims to transport his audience—to “make them forget what they did today, and what they will do tomorrow,” he says. From cubes that serve as frames and obstructions to diversely characterized couples to vastly contrasting music, Little mortal jump is layered with unexpected twists and turns. This work is a step in the evolution of Cerrudo’s choreographic style, of which he says, “I challenge myself to create more complex works and to do things that I haven’t done before.”

Notes courtesy of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Artist Biographies

Alejandro Cerrudo

Alejandro Cerrudo is a Chicago based-choreographer born in Madrid, Spain. His professional career includes work with Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC). Cerrudo became HSDCʼs Resident Choreographer in 2008 and held that position until 2018. In 2020, Peter Boal named Cerrudo the first Resident Choreographer of Pacific Northwest Ballet, a post he will held for three seasons from 2020 to 2023.

Cerrudo’s body of work has been performed by more than 20 professional dance companies around the world. In March 2012, upon receiving the Joyce Theater Foundationʼs second Rudolf Nureyev Prize for New Dance, Cerrudo was invited by Pacific Northwest Ballet to choreograph his first work for the company, Memory Glow. Additional honors include an award from the Boomerang Fund for Artists (2011) and the Prince Prize for Commissioning Original Work from the Prince Charitable Trusts (2012) for his acclaimed major work, One Thousand Pieces. In 2014, he was awarded the USA Donnelley Fellowship by United States Artists.

Mr. Cerrudo was one of four choreographers invited by New York City Balletʼs Wendy Whelan to create and perform original duets for her program Restless Creature. In 2017, Cerrudo was invited by Daniil Simkin to choreograph a site-specific performance for the Guggenheim Rotunda, a Works & Process Rotunda Project commission featuring Daniil Simkin, with original costumes by Dior. Cerrudoʼs Sleeping Beauty, created for Ballet Theater Basel in 2016, was nominated as Production of the Year in Switzerland in Tanz, Jahrbuch 2016 by Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

In 2022, Mr. Cerrudo was appointed artistic director of Charlotte Ballet.

Alejandro Cerrudo’s choreographic residency with PNB was sponsored by Susan Brotman.

Ana Lopez

Ana Lopez began her formal training at Conservatorio de Danza Diputacion de A Coruña. Upon graduating Isaac Diaz Pardo High School, she continued her training at Centro Internacional de Danza Carmen Roche. Lopez danced with Joven Ballet Carmen Roche, with Compañía Nacional de Danza 2 in works by Nacho Duato and Tony Fabre, and at Ballet Theater Munich under the directorship of Philip Taylor. From 2008 to 2019 she danced with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago where she performed works by choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, Jorma Elo, Alejandro Cerrudo, and many others. She was named one of Dance Magazineʼs “25 to Watch” in 2012, and in 2017 she was invited to perform in Daniil Simkinʼs Falls the Shadow, a site-specific work choreographed for the Guggenheim Rotunda and commissioned by Work & Process.

Branimira Ivanova

Branimira Ivanova is a graduate of the University of Connecticut (MFA in Theater Design- Costume Design) and the International Academy of Design and Technology (BFA in Fashion Design). She is a Chicago-based designer working with local, national, and international companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Gus Giordano Jazz Dance, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Breakbone Dance Company, National Portuguese Ballet, and Introdans, NI, among others. She has worked with distinguished choreographers, including Lucas Crandall, Toru Shimazaki, Margueritte Donlon, Lauri Stallings, and Gustavo Ramirez Sansano. Ms. Ivanova was a 2010 Jeff Award nominee for best costume design in Lifeline Theater’s production of Wuthering Heights and, in 2009, for Treasure Island. Her work was part of the United States National Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial World Stage Expo in 2007. In addition to her work as a costume designer, she also runs a minimalist contemporary sportswear clothing company, HOI Clothing.

Michael Korsch

Michael Korsch is a lighting, projection, and scenic designer based in Philadelphia, where he earned his BA in theater at Temple University. He has created hundreds of visual designs for dance, theater, and other live performances around the world. Mr. Korsch has been the resident lighting designer and technical director for Complexions Contemporary Ballet since 1998, the resident lighting designer for Ballet Arizona since 2001, and the lighting and technical director for the Laguna Dance Festival since 2005. He has also designed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, BalletMet, BalletX, Charlotte Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Disney Creative Entertainment, English National Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, MOMIX, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, Staatsballett Berlin, and Washington Ballet, among others.

Pablo Piantino

Pablo Piantino is originally from Mendoza, Argentina. He studied dance at the Colon Theatre and on full scholarship at The Julliard School, during his performance career Piantino danced for San Francisco Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. After dancing at HSDC, Pablo received his MFA in Dance Education from the University of Washington. Piantino is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah’s School of Dance and continues to stage dance works internationally.