Youth America Grand Prix

Nashville, TN

General

Reviewer

Dancer Age

Event Details

Round

Regional

Season

Location

Nashville, TN

Regional was the closest

Why this location

"Chosen by the team due to a advantageous date"

Regionals attended

Rationale for multiple regionals

"Looking back I do not think it was beneficial to attend multiple regionals because my dancer already has opportunities to perform in full length ballet productions. She has also never received any placements or scholarships and I don't see that changing."

Who encouraged multiple regionals

School Encouragement for Multiple Regionals

"Teacher wanted to give students multiple opportunities to performs solos and compete with the hope of improving after the first one earlier in the season."

Did Dancer Miss School?

Days of school missed

Master Classes

Master Class Types

Master class teachers

"Ruben Martin for technique director of the International Ballet Academy. I am not sure who I had for contemporary"
"Usually the judges for comps teach master classes"
"Can’t recall"

Distance from venue

Received corrections

How corrections were given

"My class was small so it felt like everyone was getting individual feedback which was fabulous."

What corrections were about

"People were getting corrected on their timing mainly and working through every movement with intention."

Teacher engagement

"Very engaged, the classes were very hard and we spent a lot of time in the center and across the floor!"
"The teachers were engaged and walking around the room. Gave general corrections and occasionally singled an individual out. Rooms were crowded and my taller dancer often had trouble with spacing and other students not traveling as much or showing appropriate etiquette in spacing."
"Dancer cannot recall"

Crowding

Really Crowded


Plenty of Room to Move

Master Class Feedback

Technique

Contemporary

Additional master class comments

"Overall both classes were great since it was a small number of people in the class we got to do a lot of combos. And even go one at a time! Only 15 dancers were in 17 and up at Nashville. But there were 40 plus in every other age group which I found interesting. Although masters classes are optional."
"There is always obvious favoritism. Those students know who they are and tend to move to the front of the room and have a dialogue with teacher. Numbers are not worn for master classes so there is no identification method unless teacher goes out of way to ask name and school."
"N/A"

Performance Details

Venue name

"Tennessee Performing Arts Center"
"TPAC"
"Can’t recall"

Venue description

"Beautiful theatre and with lots of seating and a big lobby space!"
"Very professional and nice"
"The venue was adequate. Parking around it was limited and very expensive."

Stage description

"There was Marley and there was plenty of room to jump!"
"Marley was present, not raked, floor was not slippery or sticky, and there was plenty of room."
"Marley. There was enough room for a full pass on stage"

Off-stage warm-up space

"They had a rehearsal and warm up space close to the dressing rooms with Marley and barres already set out."
"There is a full rehearsal hall and plenty of warm up space off-stage."
"Minimal"

Dressing rooms

"N/A"
"Not sure"
"Can’t recall"

Male dressing room

Onstage warm-up

"We got 30 minutes of open stage time and it was a little crowded but not too bad."
"My dancer despises open stage warm up. Favorites often push their way to the front and make room for themselves. It is very crowded and not a lot of room to mark choreography. Definitely not room for full diagonals or big jumps because of the crowd."
"Very crowded"

Other schedule comments

"Nope!"
"No"

Staff communication

"Very informative and everything was ran very efficiently!"
"They posted any updates to Instagram stories so you had to keep up with any changes there."
"Good communication"

Judging

Judging rubric clarity

Judges' attentiveness

Feedback turnaround

Type of Feedback

Feedback helpfulness

Not Helpful At All


Extremely Helpful

Main takeaway

"Very detailed! Peter Stark was on the panel and gave me a full paragraph of things I need to work for and how I can reach my goals through exercises to do. Other panel members were extremely helpful as well!"
"Over the years of attending these regionals the feedback has been minimal, but there has not been any coded language."
"Feedback was sparse and inconsistent (focused on different things … no consensus)."

Scoring felt fair

Why Scoring Unfair?

"My dancer has consistently scored in the low 90s (90-93) but has never been invited as a soloist to Finals or received any type of scholarship. I have no idea if there is a score "cutoff" but always seems like that is the score range we live at. Rumor has always been 95s get invited but not always, but always have wondered if there are other factors at play."
"Scoring is not transparent and scores for my dancer varied wildly (e.g., one score would have been high enough to qualify for finals, another was close and one was much lower)"

Awards & Scholarships

Awards ceremony

"It was very long. They announce top 24 for each category and age! Then introduce the panel and scholarships"
"Long! Parents are not always invited to sit in audience due to space but there is always a video feed on YouTube."
"The award ceremony was painful to watch as the presenter clearly favorited certain dancers (e.g., by using personal nicknames for them and saying “I’ve seen you dancing for many years”. It was unclear if this was related to prior YAGP performances or if they had a teacher/student relationship). This dancer placed highly in both categories so there was a clear appearance of favoritism."

Won an award or training offer

Invited to finals

Award or Training Offer Description

"Summer intensive scholarship (full)"

Final Comments

Best aspect

"How well the competition was ran and all of the great feedback I got from the master classes and the competition part of it!"
"Seeing ballet friends and just enjoying watching ballet. The whole process of setting a goal, working towards it, and then the opportunity to perform a solo is itself winning. Because the process will naturally improve your technique and dancing as a whole if you have good training. YAGP, although very expensive for our family, does help my dancer improve. We just have to go into it knowing that winning or being recognized isn't the goal. We are not a favorite dancer, a favorite school, and do not have their predictable "ideal" body type they are known for."
"Scholarship availability"

Worst aspect

"The stage manager was super strict and stressed some dancers out of small things."
"The cost is a lot for our family. There are apparent favorites year after year and the partner schools are definitely shown favoritism. Very competitive and ability levels are very high. If you don't fit that typical European/Russian ballet body style, you will not be noticed, no matter how artistic you are or how great your technique is."
"Clear favoritism, opaque scoring, very little actual feedback on solos"

Competition culture

"Pretty competitive and stressful overall."
"Just seems to be a machine to cattle herd as many kids through their regionals as possible. Nothing very personal at all, unless you're a favorite, or have connections with the officials."
"Intense, unsupportive, heavily focused on promoting (and over promoting) a select few dancers. They seem to value extreme hyper mobility and “tricks” in contemporary versus actual musicality. It feels like the competition is focused on the business of pulling in more money and more dancers rather than contributing to dancers actual growth and development."

Attendee culture

"Respectful and encouraging"
"It's very tense and not a lot of fun. Lots of intense dance parents and teachers putting unnecessary pressure on kids to perform. Because of social media and all these young kids having IG accounts, they know who surrounds them and relate them to their "highlight reels"."
"Generally the vibe at YAGP is more competitive (in a negative way) than at other competitions (eg ADCIBC, UBC). Some dancers were participating in their 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th YAGP Semi final of the year!"

Suggested changes

"I wouldn’t change anything!"
"- I think lowering the beginning age to 8 is a mistake. - I think the age groupings isn't fair. There is a big difference in a fresh 8/9yo and a 12 year old competing as a 11yo. I'd like the groupings to be: 9-10, 11-13, 14-16, 17-19 so four age groups instead of three. - I'd like them to wear numbers in the master classes so they can easily be identified. - The master classes should have smaller numbers so they are always so crowded. - I'd be nice to see more individual feedback on score sheets and a audio recording that was taken during performance would be even better! - I wish there was a more holistic approach, including the dancer's classwork in their score."
"More judge feedback required for each dancer. More transparency in scoring (e.g., publishing scores of those who place, real time scoring). Scoring rubrics to allow more consistency across judges. Limiting dancers to participation in one semifinal per year."

Time worth it

Not Worth It



Worth Every Minute

Overall rating

Anything else?

"Nope!"
"The process of preparing for the competition is the real prize. There will be growth in that process so never go expecting to be recognized on stage or to be awarded a scholarship. If you see worth in that, sign up and attend, but if your school has performances and students are given opportunities to perform and receive feedback elsewhere with out the expense of traveling and attending a competition, then I'd strongly consider not attending."
"In general, YAGP as an organization needs more accountability and transparency to address ongoing and well publicized allegations of favoritism. We no longer participate in this competition as a result of our experience and that of other dancers we know."