20th Anniversary Youth America Grand Prix Ballet Competition Enters Finals Week

The world's largest student ballet scholarship competition - YOUTH AMERICA GRAND PRIX (YAGP) is celebrating its 20th Anniversary Season, with its NYC Finals held at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. The week of ballet festivities will include YAGP's Final Round (April 17th), YAGP's critically acclaimed Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow Gala performance and dinner (April 18th), with a repeat Gala performance on April 19th. Lastly, on April 20th, YAGP will present an International Dance School Festival, where dancers from all over the globe will perform works representing each school's style and artistic tradition, ranging from beloved classics to cutting-edge contemporary dance.

YAGP FINAL ROUND (April 17, 2019 at 7pm) Youth America Grand Prix's 20th Anniversary season saw over 12,000 talented young students (ages 9-19) at auditions around the globe (Brazil, South Korea, Peru, Indonesia, Australia, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Canada) and over 25 U.S. cities.

Close to 1,500 finalists will gather in New York. The most promising dancers in the Junior (ages 12-14) and Senior (15-19) participants will compete in the Final Round. Scholarships, internships, and contracts with the most prestigious balletschools and companies worldwide will be awarded. Nearly $500,000 in scholarships are presented annually, and over the past 20 years nearly $4 million has been awarded at YAGP in scholarships to leading dance schools and companies around the world.

Tickets: $50, available at the David H. Koch Theater box office, at http://www.davidhkochtheater.com or 212.581.1212.

YAGP 20th ANNIVERSARY GALA, STARS OF TODAY MEET THE STARS OF TOMORROW (April 18, 2019 at 7pm) - The 20th Anniversary of the annually sold-out Youth America Grand Prix Stars of Today Meets the Stars of Tomorrow Gala will feature talented young finalists of YAGP's 2019 Season sharing the program with today's most prominent international ballet stars.

The evening will feature the World Premiere of Porte Rouge; a collaboration by Mick Jagger and Melanie Hamrick. The Rolling Stones will provide music, orchestrated by Mick Jagger, with choreography by Melanie Hamrick and Joanna DeFelice. Melanie's American Ballet Theatre colleagues dancers Skylar Brandt, Herman Cornejo, Calvin Royal, and Christine Shevchenko will perform. Indiana Woodward and Taylor Stanley of New York City Ballet will perform Tarantella Pas de Deux set to music by Louis Moreau Gottschalk with George Balanchine's choreography. Then, Ekaterina Kondaurova and Konstantin Zverev of Mariinsky Ballet will dance to In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated with choreography by William Forsythe, and music by Thom Willems. Olga Smirnova of the Bolshoi Ballet and Kimin Kim of the Mariinsky Ballet will perform Black Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake with choreography by Marius Petipa and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's music. In a World Premiere, Derek Dunn of Boston Ballet and Juliano Nunes of Royal Ballet of Flanders will perform Nothing Left set to choreography by Nunes himself and Karen LeFrak's music. Hee Seo and Cory Stearns of American Ballet Theatre will follow with Act I Pas de Deux from Manon with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and music by Jules Massenet. World Ballroom Champion Denys Drozdyuk and American Ballet Theatre'sCatherine Hurlin will perform Paso Doble set to choreography by Donnie Burns and Gaynor Fairweather, with music by Pascual Marquina Narro. Light Rain features Victor Ullate Ballet's Lucia Lacarra and Joffrey Ballet's Fabrice Calmelsset to Gerard Arpino's choreography and Dream Dancer's music. Zoey Anderson of Parsons Dance will perform Caught to David Parsons' choreography and Robert Fripp's music. Dying Swan will feature Bolshoi Ballet's Olga Smirnovaset to Mikhail Fokine's choreography and Camille Saint-Sa ns' music. YAGP alumni will conclude the show with Don Q Jubilee, set to choreography by Marius Petipa and Ludwig Minkus' music. * *This program is subject to change.

The program will be followed by a Gala Dinner, honoring Marcella Guarino Hymowitz, on the promenade of the David H. Koch Theater. Dinner co-chairs include Marcella Guarino Hymowitz along with Rebecca Hessel Cohen, Candice Miller, Colby Mugrabi, Ashley Olsen, Mary-Kate Olsen, Lesley Thompson Vecsler, and Annelise Peterson Winter. Marcella is also spearheading Beautiful At The Ballet; a new initiative where one-of-a-kind ballet tutu's are auctioned off to help talented young artists realize their dream of a professional dance career. Tutu creations by fashion houses Carolina Herrera, MONSE and The Row will be on display at the Gala.

Tickets: Performance tickets range from $55-$150 and can be purchased at www.davidhkochtheater.com. Gala tickets (performance and dinner) start at $1,500 and can be purchased by contacting the YAGP Development office at 646.541.4592 or online at www.yagp.org/stars-of-today-meet-the-stars-of-tomorrow-gala-2019/

YAGP 20TH ANNIVERSARY PERFORMANCE: (April 19, 2019 at 7pm) To accommodate the demand for tickets, the Stars of Today Meets The Stars of Tomorrow Gala program will be repeated on April 19, giving a chance for YAGPparticipants, parents, teachers, and general audience to attend. In addition, Victor Ullate Ballet's Lucia Lacarra and Josue Ullate will perform a duet from Carmen, with choreography by Victor Ullate and music by George Bizet. HoustonBallet's Tyler Donatelli will perform A Time to Dance with choreography by Stanton Welch and Antonin Dvok's music.

YAGP PRESENTS: INTERNATIONAL DANCE SCHOOL FESTIVAL: (April 20, 2019 at 3pm) For the first time in history, New York audiences will have a chance to travel the globe and see the ballet training at the world's leading dance academies in one spectacular performance featuring the graduating students from these top ballet institutions. All schools participating in this program are YAGP partner schools, presenting scholarships to the world's most promising young dance talent the finalists of YAGP.

The Festival program will be presented at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater. The USA's Boston Ballet II will begin with Jockey Dance set to August Bournonville's choreography and C.C. M ller's music. Monaco's Princess Grace Academy students will dance Dove La Luna set to Jean Christophe Maillot's choreography and Aleksandr Scriabin's music. The USA's Houston Ballet Academy will showcase an excerpt from Fingerprints set to Stanton Welch'schoreography and Dumisani Maraire's music, performed live by the Kronos Quartet. A Sweet Spell of Oblivion will be performed by Palucca University of Dresden, Germany, with David Dawson's choreography and Johann Sebastian Bach's music. Germany's Berlin State Ballet School will perform All Long Dem Day set to choreography by Marco Goecke and music by Nina Simone. English National Ballet School (UK) will perform the Overture from Die Zauberharfe with choreography by Carlos Valcarcel and music by Franz Schubert. Monaco's Princess Grace Academy will perform Black Swan Pas de Deux, with choreography by Marco Goecke and music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Germany's John Cranko School at The Stuttgart Ballet will perform Die Sch pfung, set to choreography by Uwe Scholz and music by Joseph Haydn. The USA's ABT Studio Company will conclude with Don Quixote Suite set to Marius Petipa's choreography and Ludwig Minkus' music. The program will also include the Australian Ballet School, Russia's Bolshoi Ballet Academy, and The USA's San Francisco Ballet School.* *This program is subject to change.

YOUTH AMERICA GRAND PRIX (YAGP) is the world's largest global dance network, connecting dance students, teachers, schools, companies, alumni, sponsors, dancers and choreographers with audiences around the world.

This year, in 2019, YAGP is celebrating its 20th Anniversary Season. Over these past 20 years, over $4 million has been presented at YAGP in scholarships to the world's leading dance schools, with up to $350,000 now awarded annually. Since YAGP's founding in 1999, over 100,000 young dancers ages 9 to 19 of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds have participated in YAGP's international workshops, audition classes, and dance awareness events. Today, more than 12,000 young dancers audition annually. More than 450 Youth America Grand Prix alumni are now dancing with 80 professional companies around the world, including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet and many others. Over 100 of these alumni are soloists and principal dancers.

Larissa Saveliev is the Founder and Artistic Director YAGP. Larissa trained at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow and toured throughout the world, before emigrating to the United States in 1995.

For more information about Youth America Grand Prix, call 646.465.5933 or visit www.yagp.org.

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