Dancer’s son inspires benefit for hemophilia

Asked what he most enjoys about studying ballet, 13-year-old Isaac Orrante offered a decisive reply: the challenge.

“There’s a lot of perseverance, and it’s really just fun to mess around with different steps,” said Orrante, a seventh-grader at Indianola Informal K-8 School on the North Side.

The son of former BalletMet dancers Jimmy Orrante and Sonia Welker Orrante, Isaac — who lives with his family, including sisters Aiyana, 10, and Imara, 7, in the Clintonville neighborhood — takes classes four days a week at BalletMet Academy and the New Albany Ballet Company.

When not mastering moves inside ballet studios, Isaac faces a different sort of challenge: He was born with hemophilia, a condition in which a missing bloodclotting protein can lead to excessive bleeding.

“When you have something as common as a nosebleed or losing a tooth or simple bruising, those things that are common become more of a serious issue to attend to,” said Jimmy Orrante, whose 20-year career with BalletMet ended in 2015.

This weekend, dancers and musicians from across the country will shine a light on the condition with "The Benefit," a fundraising performance for the Central Ohio Chapter of the National Hemophilia Foundation.

The event, organized by Jimmy Orrante and current BalletMet dancer Attila Bongar, will take place Sunday at the Riffe Center’s Davidson Theatre.

“This is our second-largest traditional fundraiser that we do in the year,” said Tauna Batiste, executive director of the foundation's central Ohio chapter, which has reaped a combined $45,000 from two previous editions of The Benefit.

“That has a major impact,” Batiste said. “These come in as undesignated dollars.”

The Benefit, which was formed by Orrante and Bongar in 2014 as a childhood-cancer fundraiser,

shifted focus the next year to hemophilia.

“We changed the partnership to hemophilia because of Isaac, obviously — that was a big motivation,” Bongar said.

The money, Batiste said, has been used to support programs of the foundation's central Ohio chapter and to provide direct assistance to hemophiliacs who suffer “a financial impact from their diagnosis."

In assembling the show, Bongar and Orrante tapped many performing-arts colleagues.

“Every artist we’ve approached about doing this has been so willing to be part of it,” Orrante said. “They know that it’s volunteer, and they know that they’re not going to get paid, but I think artists would rather be dancing and sharing what they do ... than not.”

In a program of short pieces, eight BalletMet dancers will perform, as will two from Columbus Dance Theatre. Most of the pieces will include accompaniment from 24 area musicians (conducted by Columbus Symphony cellist Luis Biava).

Many of the performers live outside central Ohio, including Taylor Carrasco, Jimmy Cunningham, Melissa Gelfin and Michael Mengden, all from the Cincinnati Ballet; Patrick Howell and his wife, Nicole Teague-Howell of the Milwaukee Ballet; Ben Rabe and Amy Stuart of the Rochester City Ballet; and Lauren Fadeley of the Miami City Ballet.

Other out-of-town performers will include dancer Marcus Willis of New York City and guitarist Bullfrog Willard McGhee of Raleigh, North Carolina.

The performance represents a homecoming for Howell, who danced with BalletMet from 2000 to 2004, overlapping with Jimmy Orrante’s tenure.

“Jimmy was the guy I looked up to,” Howell said. “I love Isaac to death — I was there at the child’s birth — and I think about him when I’m rehearsing for this, and I think about all the money we can raise to help.”

Fadeley sees many pluses to performing in the event.

“Anytime you get to dance for something greater than yourself is definitely worth it,” said Fadeley, who appeared in the previous editions of The Benefit.

Isaac Orrante won't be seen onstage, but he credits dancing with alleviating some of the symptoms of hemophilia.

“Ever since I started dancing, my bleeds have pretty much stopped,” said Isaac, who has been studying for about six years. “It builds muscle in different joint groups, and it strengthens your abilities, and it prevents bleeding.”

Isaac is unsure whether he wants to pursue a career in ballet or his other passion: basketball.

Either way, hemophilia is unlikely to stand in his way.

"The worst thing I’ve gotten from basketball is a jammed finger.”