Above photo: Narcisco Alejandro Medina Arias, courtesy of VAM Productions-Finals of the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) will be Wednesday, with the Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow Gala on Thursday, and a tribute to Julio Bocca on Friday celebrating his 50th birthday. All events will be at Koch Theater, Lincoln Center. As I detailed in a previous post, ballet competitions uncover future stars as most principal dancers at major companies have a successful track record at such events. Winners at YAGP include Matthew Golding, Hee Seo, Sarah Lane, Joseph Philips (2002); Isaac Hernandez, Brooklyn Mack (2003); Joseph Gorak (2005); Sergei Polunin, Jeffrey Cirio (2006); Melissa Hamilton (2007); Vadim Muntagirov, Skylar Brandt (2008); Jeffrey Cirio (2009); Kimin Kim (2012).
The Wednesday finals will feature the most promising young dancers aged 12-19 from over 1,000 finalists that advanced from the semi-final rounds. Winners receive scholarships and contracts with major ballet schools and ballet companies. The Thursday Gala will feature ABT’s Skylar Brandt, NYCB’s Tiler Peck and Zachary Catazaro, English National Ballet’s Tamara Rojo, National Ballet of Canada’s Zvetlana Lunkina and Evan McKie, among others. Friday’s event will honor former ABT great Julio Bocca and will include appearances from Nina Ananiashvili, Marcelo Gomes, Isaac Hernandez, Manuel Legris, Joaquin De Luz, Yuan Yuan Tan, and others. Should be a great star-studded event.
Tickets are available at Koch Theater.