For the third year in a row, Kansas City Ballet School has traveled to New York for the Youth America Grand Prix Finals.
“It‘s wonderful to watch our students grow technically and artistically as they prepare for YAGP,” KCB School Director Grace Holmes said. “Having something to work towards and an opportunity to share their hard work, contributes to students’ self-confidence. And our students are so supportive of each other – it shows how close-knit our Academy community is.”
More than 10,000 students from 31 countries who competed during the regional finals around the globe. Only 1,500 were invited to the finals in New York. Of these 800 were soloists of which KCBS happily had three, one made it to the final round: Poppy Trettel.
While KCBS students did not place at the national competition finals this year, three received scholarship offers from prestigious schools.
Hannah Zucht: Harid Conservatory
Simo Atanasov: Joffrey Ballet
Poppy Trettel: Canada’s National Ballet School
Shaping the Future
When asked about the event, Racheal Nye, principal and YAGP coordinator, said, “It’s great to see the growth in the kids by the end of the process, and see the school represented so well at an international event. I also really enjoy being inspired and motivated by other schools and seeing the talented students from around the world.”
Nye is proud of the way the KCBS students were kind and welcoming to other participants, and their professional attitudes. For example, the Baroque ensemble dancers were reviewing independently and had lined up at open stage to space before she even got there to look for them.
Every year Nye reads through the written performance critiques from the YAGP judges. Her goal is to incorporate these corrections into how she teaches all of her students going forward. She tries to approach the things she wants to fix by gearing the combinations to train the body to reflexively accomplish the move correctly. By looking at the experience as a whole, she attempts to answer these questions:
- What pieces/choreography seemed to do well?
- How prepared were the students and was there anything that she could do in advance that would make things run more smoothly?
- What could she learn about preparing better for the venue? Etc.
In doing so, the results from these competitions shape strategy for future years.
Related Blog Posts
Here are some links to past blog posts with similar topics:
KC Ballet School has Historic Showing at Youth American Grand Prix
