Prix de Lausanne 2020

[Pas de Quatre]

Registration was this morning and the first classes, one for girls followed by one for boys, are now being live streamed on Facebook and presumably elsewhere.

[Jan McNulty]

Here's a link to the Prix FB page:

 

https://www.facebook.com/PrixdeLausanne/

[LinMM]

Thanks Janet will look later when have better WiFi! 

[Millicent]

I'm so enjoying watching some of this. A few girls in particular have caught my eye and then when they change leotards I get confused! 

[MAK]

Managed to watch some of the livestream solo coaching via Facebook this morning - fantastic!

[DD Driver]

I enjoyed the short interview at 55:15 with Armando Braswell, the contemporary teacher.

 

He noted the increasing flexibility seen in the boys and the need to also have control by building strength. As to how to develop this....at 59:00 he spoke about some girls focusing on being thin, at the cost of having strength.  He'd like to see some quads!  ME TOO!  If only more ADs would look for strong, powerful young women then we might see more diversity and less eating disorders.

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by DD Driver

[Sabine0308]

Yes, I liked this interview as well. Very true what he said. Now I am sorry for Kotomi Yamada ( from Academie Princesse Grace), she can no longer participate, she broke her toe! 😢

[DD Driver]

29 minutes ago, Sabine0308 said:

Yes, I liked this interview as well. Very true what he said. Now I am sorry for Kotomi Yamada ( from Academie Princesse Grace), she can no longer participate, she broke her toe! 😢

 

I am sorry for her!  #317 I think

[Neverdancedjustamum]

Watching the PdL classes has been so inspirational for DD.  Both of us have enjoyed watching the catch up of the live streams since they started doing this (from last year I think?).  Yesterday she was listening to Elisabeth Platel reminding the candidates to "fifth! fifth! fifth! write on your bathroom wall, fifth!!!" in relation to when they land jumps or finishing their pirouettes.  Last night DD came home excitedly telling me that her teacher has commented how neatly she has been landing her jumps in fifth - clearly Elisabeth Platel's reminder has stuck to her mind 😄

 

Quite sad that the Monaco contingent is down one, students from Princesse Grace have always been a few of our favourites over the years.

[Sabine0308]

I'm sure Marco (from APG) will make it to the finals. Another great talent from this school. ❤

[abitwornout]

i sat down this afternoon just to watch a few ........3 hours later i was still watching . Lovely afternoon of dance

[Peony]

4 hours ago, Sabine0308 said:

I'm sure Marco (from APG) will make it to the finals. Another great talent from this school. ❤

Is he number 206? Caught my eye immediately!

[Sabine0308]

1 hour ago, Peony said:

Is he number 206? Caught my eye immediately!

No 406. I also like no. 421 M. Holeleu from Romania. Favorite girl is 307 Lin Zhang. A very cute Giselle and her "Rossini" was really freaky! C. Pires from Portugal did a very unique Chroma. Wishing all of them good luck tomorrow of course.

[Peony]

Yes 406, sorry my mistake. I’ve only watched one session, but he was definitely my favourite!

[LinMM]

Haven't managed to see any of it yet hope I can catch up on YouTube! 

[invisiblecircus]

The Prize Winners are:

1. Marco Masciari (Italy)
2. Ava Arbuckle (USA)
3. João Vitor Santana (Brazil)...
4. Lin Zhang (China)
5. Chaeyeon Kang (South Korea)
6. Matei Holeleu (Romania)
7. Vitor Augusto Vaz (Brazil)
8. Yuyan Wang (China)

Best Young Talent: Ava Arbuckle – (USA)
Contemporary Dance Prize: Marco Masciari (Italy)
Best Swiss Candidate: Matei Holeleu (Romania)
Audience Favourite: Catarina Pires – (Portugal)
Audience Favourite (web): Yuyan Wang – (China)

[Sabine0308]

Congratulations to all of them! I am especially happy to see Lin Zhang among the winners, as she captured my heart with her "Giselle" and a freaky "Rossini cards". Marco as 1st winner is no surprise. For the third year in a row, a student from the Academie de Princesse Grace Monaco has won the Prix. And always has it been highly deserved. What a great school!! It was very endearing that he dedicated his prize to Kotomi Yamada who broke her toe during the Prix week and could not make it into the finals.

Ava Arbuckle won the Nureyev Prize which surprised me but now I see it was for being the best young talent and at age 15, she did indeed a marvellous job. I wonder if the Nurejev Prize changed its "header"? Because I know Shale Wagman won it for great artistry back in 2018. 

Looking forward to see them hopefully onstage some day.💖

[Peony]

I chose all the male winners but only Lin Zhang from the ladies. Perhaps I have unusual taste! I really liked Paige McElligott and Alina Taratorin, I was very surprised they didn’t even make the final

[invisiblecircus]

1 hour ago, Sabine0308 said:

Ava Arbuckle won the Nureyev Prize which surprised me but now I see it was for being the best young talent and at age 15, she did indeed a marvellous job. I wonder if the Nurejev Prize changed its "header"? Because I know Shale Wagman won it for great artistry back in 2018. 

 

I don't know if it changed it's description but when Shale Wagman won it in 2018, Deborah Bull announced it as being for "a junior category finalist who didn't win an award."

There was some mumbling from officials in the background, then one of them said "...That's not exactly how we've done it, we've awarded it for exceptional artistry."  I do remember wondering if they made a mistake and didn't realise it until the announcements, Shale obviously being a prize winner and not from the junior category, but it was well deserved in any case.

Ava Arbuckle also won a prize so maybe the criteria was changed, but I think it made more sense to go to a non prize winner, otherwise it's just going to the highest ranked junior.

[Sabine0308]

Ah Yes I remember the slight confusion in 2018. well maybe they change the description every year. I think it's funny to call it "for best young talent" because they all are young (junior and senior) and the best young talent would be the winner of the gold medal, imo.😀

[Pas de Quatre]

It was announced as being awarded for artistry. So it could have gone to any of the finalists.

[Sabine0308]

I checked 2018 and 2020. In 2018, as already said, the prize was given for exceptional artistry, and this is what the caption said under Shale's name. In the following years, they called it the same onstage but the caption said "best young talent". 

[capybara]

I thought that it would be interesting to note the ages of the winners:
1. Marco Masciari (Italy)  17.7 years
2. Ava Arbuckle (USA) 15.1 years
3. João Vitor Santana (Brazil) 17.7 years
4. Lin Zhang (China) 17.4 years 17.4 years
5. Chaeyeon Kang (South Korea) 15.11 years
6. Matei Holeleu (Romania) 18.1 years
7. Vitor Augusto Vaz (Brazil) 15.3 years
8. Yuyan Wang (China) 17.8 years

Best Young Talent: Ava Arbuckle – (USA)
Contemporary Dance Prize: Marco Masciari (Italy)
Best Swiss Candidate: Matei Holeleu (Romania)
Audience Favourite: Catarina Pires – (Portugal) 17.11 years
Audience Favourite (web): Yuyan Wang – (China)

 

There is a difference of 3 years between the youngest and the oldest which makes one wonder whether the judges take account of that in some way.

The absence of candidates from the UK is a concern when one considers the amazing range of experiences that competitors have been given this week, quite apart from the competitive element. And they have also mixed with new people, lived in a different country, coped with language difficulties, met with disappointment as well as success. All this helps to build the artists of the future. But, for some reason, the UK seems to choose not to participate, just to 'collect' winners for their 'top' schools!!!!!

 

•  

 

 

[DD Driver]

13 minutes ago, capybara said:

The absence of candidates from the UK is a concern when one considers the amazing range of experiences that competitors have been given this week, quite apart from the competitive element. And they have also mixed with new people, lived in a different country, coped with language difficulties, met with disappointment as well as success. All this helps to build the artists of the future. But, for some reason, the UK seems to choose not to participate, just to 'collect' winners for their 'top' schools!!!!!

 

I was happy to see a candidate from The Australian Ballet School (ABS) at the Prix this year!  I'm not sure of the backstory to this but it was encouraging that the school allowed it.  ABS has been quite reluctant to allow students to do comps. This school is a filter into The Australian Ballet (TAB) and students don't know if they will get a contract until graduation.  So I welcome students being empowered to take whatever opportunities are available while they are in training.  

 

Different from UK vocational schools in that ABS  is not government funded - parents are paying for their child to attend.  UK schools may exert more power to say no to their students.   

[Peony]

I saw elmhurst and ENB listed amongst the schools, presumably their British students were also free to enter? If the main aim is to win a place at a top school or company it’s probably not that attractive to students already at their preferred school. There are so many opportunities, including international summer schools which may be cheaper and don’t require missing full time training for. I also think British training produces dancers to ‘peak’ later which is in contrast to the schools entering the younger dancers 

[Pas de Quatre]

Yes, there was one boy from Elmhurst and one from ENB, neither were British though, and neither got through to the final. It is debated every year, did other Vocational schools not apply or was it that they weren't selected? On the other hand RBS danced after the interval and were wonderful - particularly the three in the extract from Rhapsody (don't have their names to hand) who looked completely professional!

[Karen]

Would be interested to know who danced from RBS if you can find the names, PDQ. 

[Pas de Quatre]

So far I haven't seen any individual names. At some point they were said to be 3rd years, some of whom are previous Prix winners.  Also I looked again at the artistic prize,  definitely announced both verbally in English and captioned in French as "exceptional artistry". It is all on Youtube.

[Pas de Quatre]

Prix de Lausanne final

 

Here is a link to the whole of the final.  The Interlude performance begins at 2.10 and 39 seconds.  

[capybara]

I think that many of us know the names of the three dancers in the excerpts from Rhapsody and, indeed, most of the students featured in the Larina Waltz. But I'm not sure that it's appropriate to give them here if they weren't specifically announced at the event.

Surely, these pieces will be repeated in the school's summer performances and a number of the dancers will be on Aud Jebsen contracts with the RB next season?

[LinMM]

Just catching up with this on YouTube just finished Day 3! 
However Facebook kindly showed the winning presentations which I couldn’t resist watching so know that some I’m liking did not get to the Final ...though it’s obvious the winner from Princess Grace Academy is a star in the making already! 

[Sabine0308]

This is what I meant. If they always call it verbally artistic prize, then they made a mistake in 2019 and 2020 with the captions. Screenshots from YouTube, sorry for the bad quality but I had to reduce the size of the picture here.

 

[LinMM]

Well as usual with this competition I only agreed with a couple of the decisions as to who should be in the final 20 ....or 21 as it was this year. 

I think after Day 5 I was impressed .....and nearly all in the contemporary pieces rather than classical this year ...with Marco Masciari and Matei Holeleu and loved Ava Arbuckles contemporary. It's great to see she can actually dance as she does tend to post pictures on Facebook of her in extreme gymnastic type positions ....some of them not very flattering ....but she really got that contemporary piece I thought. 

There were others who were amazing for me too .......but didn't get to the final! 

In the classical pieces again Marco stood out and for me also a German boy ( with a French name) Henri Frey ....he was 412 ...and a Hungarian boy 413 was pretty good as well. 

But to be honest although they were all really good of course ....you couldn't get to that final without being exceptional for age etc ....none of the girls ....who got to the final anyway... really stood out for me in the classical pieces this year.  Lin Zhang was very nice but not in the league of Yu Hang ( now at the RBS) when she danced a couple of years back. There were a couple of Australian girls and a girl from South Africa in particular  who I thought should have made the final for classical. 

 

I definitely think Marco will be a star at some point and will be interested  to see where he decides to go. 

 

I don't suppose anyone has the original list of candidates names against numbers? 

I do hope they will change some of the contemporary pieces next year don't think I want to watch that  Chroma variation for a while!! 

I haven't watched the finals yet as spent so long on Day five but will see if anyone of the final 21 really comes across other than those mentioned from Day five.

Edited February 9, 2020 by LinMM