Youth America Grand Prix Brings Student Ballet Competition And Stars Of Today Meet The Stars Of Tomorrow Gala To Tampa
Over 300 young dancers compete January 8–11, with January 10 gala honoring choreographer Hans van Manen at the Straz Center.
More than 300 young dancers from across Florida will compete at the Tampa auditions for Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), the world’s largest student ballet scholarship competition, taking place January 8–11, 2026. Open to dancers ages 9–19, the auditions award cash prizes and scholarships to leading dance academies around the world.
Participants will perform classical and contemporary repertoire for a panel of judges that includes Kennedy Brown (Principal Dancer, Nashville Ballet), Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye (Artistic Director, Oklahoma City Ballet), Alexei Moskalenko (Associate Artistic Director, YAGP; former Bolshoi Ballet dancer), Gillian Murphy (former Principal Dancer, American Ballet Theatre), Sonia Rodriguez (former Principal Dancer, National Ballet of Canada), and Mikhail Tchoupakov (Professor of Ballet, University of North Carolina School of the Arts).
The Tampa auditions conclude with YAGP’s Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow Gala on Saturday, January 10 at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts. The evening will pay tribute to choreographer Hans van Manen, who died in December, and whose career included more than 150 works created over eight decades for companies including Dutch National Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater.
The gala will feature performances by YAGP alumni Brady Farrar, Yoon Jung Seo, and Takumi Miyake of American Ballet Theatre; Jeraldine Mendoza and Dylan Gutierrez of Joffrey Ballet; and Jacquelin Harris and Yannick Lebrun of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Tickets are available at strazcenter.org.
Founded in 1999, Youth America Grand Prix is the largest global network of dance education, offering auditions, master classes, performances, and alumni services worldwide. Over the past 27 years, YAGP has awarded more than $5 million in scholarships to leading dance schools, with up to $500,000 now awarded annually.
More than 500 YAGP alumni currently dance with 100 professional companies worldwide, including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, and Stuttgart Ballet, with more than 100 alumni serving as soloists or principal dancers.
YAGP has also played a significant role in arts access and advocacy, launching virtual programming during the COVID-19 pandemic, relocating Ukrainian dance students during the war in 2022, reinstating its Job Fair in 2023, and celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2024 with events at Lincoln Center and a Guinness World Record–setting pointe gathering.
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