Youth America Grand Prix ballet contest is a showcase in grace

The young dancers wait silently in the wings, their eyes tracing the graceful moves of the single ballerina who is fluttering onstage. Until the music stops, they hold their collective breath.

The ballerina curtsies and rushes offstage into the arms of friends – friends who are also her competition. Air kisses are exchanged, as none of the dancers wants to smudge their makeup. Within seconds, a new dancer struts onto the stage for her turn to shine. “Cue music,” says the stage manager.

This is Youth America Grand Prix, the world’s largest student ballet scholarship competition, where distinguished judges identify promising young talent who will receive tuition to elite dance schools and programs around the globe. YAGP holds 32 regional auditions in the United States and Canada, plus 14 worldwide, with about 15,000 dancers total competing each year. In 26 years, scholarships worth $5 million have been awarded.

Here at The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, in a large room behind the stage, Daoyuan Chen gives some last-minute corrections to two dancers who are warming up. This event is an invaluable opportunity to perform in front of an audience, explains Mr. Chen, artistic director for N&D Ballet, a school in Lexington, Massachusetts. The dancers also can be seen by judges, who dish out scores and feedback, including compliments.

Besides the judges, a smattering of parents, dance teachers, and friends sits watching the action in the huge theater. Polite applause follows each performance, with occasional loud cheering and outbursts of awe.

What are the judges looking for? Tony Award nominee Karine Plantadit, a former soloist with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, says that in addition to technique and skill, “I’m looking for how much enjoyment they have in self-expression. … They need to say something.”

It’s sometimes hard to remember that these poised creatures are still children. Onstage, they project a maturity beyond their years, especially as they pirouette, twirl, leap, and extend their legs beyond what seems humanly possible. But downstairs, where a labyrinth of hallways leads to dressing rooms with Hollywood-worthy lighting, their adult veneers fall away to laughter, chitchat, and excitement as bedazzled costumes are donned and hairstyles perfected.