Prix de Lausanne 2024

[invisiblecircus]

8 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

Good heavens, I never knew that.  What exactly is a partner company?  It seems a little odd to me that one of the most prestigious schools in the world is bound by a partnership rule to have a winner in the school/company, when their existing pupils do not participate.  Does it have to be the overall winner, or just someone who has won something?  

There are a number of schools and companies who have chosen to be partners to the Prix de Lausanne. This is by mutual agreement of the school and competition, but it's the school/ company's decision to be a partner or not. 

Each prize winner gets to spend a year at the school (for the younger candidates) or company (for the older ones) of their choice from the list of partner schools/ companies. In the even that 2 prize winners choose the same school, the higher placed gets priority, but the school can decide to take both if they like (but are not obligated to.)

Whether or not the school has students participating is not connected to this. 

[MAX]

Royal Ballet profile would be very different without the Prix de Lausanne.

[FionaM]

@MAX

 

yes Calvin was at the RBS after the PdL 2012, on a full scholarship.

 

There are 8 PdL scholarship prize winners each year.  Those fund one year of free tuition and living expenses at one of the partner schools.  The prize winner gets to choose their school, after the others ranked above them.  If they take a position at a company (rather than a school, as plenty are aged 18) that is not a partner of the PdL then the scholarship is either forfeited or rolled down to the next ranked finalist.  (I don’t know how the mechanics of that work.). The PdL publish a list of where the scholarship winners go, about 1-2 months after the competition.  The schools and companies are present at the PdL Networking Forum and make multiple offers to students whether prize winners, finalists or semi-finalists.
 

in 2023, the gold medal was shared by two boys, Fabrizzio Ulloa Cornejo (Mexico) and Millán de Benito (Spain) who both chose to join the RBS. 

 

Other RB company members not named above that have joined the RB company via the school on PdL scholarships include:  Harrison Lee, gold medal winner of PdL 2015 (aged 15!), Luca Acri, Joonhyuk Jun, Sae Maeda, Taisuke Nakao, Mariko Sasaki, Yu Hang, Leticia Stock, Denilson Almeida, Brayden Galucci, Stanislaw Wegrzyn (PdL apprentice to the company).    And not to forget Vadim Muntagirov who joined the RBS on a PdL scholarship, and was given early principal roles at ENB before joining RB. 

 

There is a similar longish list of current company dancers who have been recruited to the school at even younger ages via the YAGP competition, including Daichi Ikarashi, who has since won the professional level Erik Bruhn prize. 

 

 

 

[Sophie_B]

Thanks for this discussion! I've watched as much of the PdL as work allows for the last 5 years or so and I always thoroughly it. And learn a lot about ballet! Plus, as others have said, it's worth watching so you know who the Royal Ballet principals will be in 10 years' time  

[Jake]

What lovely, inspirational words from Alessandra Ferri during her presentation. And also later from Darcey Bussell. 
A question for those who follow other ballet competitions (I’ve watched only the last few years’ PdLs) - do the male dancers generally appear to have an advantage?

[Pas de Quatre]

An interesting question, I don't think male dancers have an advantage as such, but by their very nature their solos tend to be more spectacular. I did pretty much agree with the jury's decisions.

 

 

[invisiblecircus]

21 minutes ago, Jake said:

What lovely, inspirational words from Alessandra Ferri during her presentation. And also later from Darcey Bussell. 
A question for those who follow other ballet competitions (I’ve watched only the last few years’ PdLs) - do the male dancers generally appear to have an advantage?

 

No, I don't think the male dancers have an advantage. Not at this level of competition. 

I watched the final and the results but didn't note the winners because I thought it would have been published immediately but it doesn't seem to have been. 

Great to see 9 prizes being awarded, I think that's more than previous years.

15 year old Joao Pedro Dos Santos Silva won the first prize. I loved his fun performance of the variation from Harlequinade and he consistently had incredible control on his pirouettes. It'll be interesting to see which school he chooses. 

There seemed to be a bit of confusion at the end. Someone was heard saying something about two prizes and Deborah Bull's mic was still on when she was asking if she should announce it. I wonder what was going on! 

[MAX]

who are the winners ?

[invisiblecircus]

1) 201 – João Pedro DOS SANTOS SILVA – Brazil
2) 415 – Martinho LIMA SANTOS – Portugal
3) 317 – Paloma LIVELLARA VIDART – Argentina
4) 106 – Crystal HUANG – United States
5) 315 – Airi KOBAYASHI – Japan
6) 411 – Jenson BLIGHT – Australia
7) 417 – Juliann FEDELE-MALARD – France
8] 302 – Natalie STEELE – United States
9) 207 – Taichi TOSHIDA – Japan

[Buddy]

Rebroadcasting of the Finals can now be seen here. Start at 31:50.

 

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/118213-011-A/finale/

 

(Thanks to Sophia at Dansomanie)

Edited February 3 by Buddy

[Peanut68]

12 hours ago, Fonty said:

 

Good heavens, I never knew that.  What exactly is a partner company?  It seems a little odd to me that one of the most prestigious schools in the world is bound by a partnership rule to have a winner in the school/company, when their existing pupils do not participate.  Does it have to be the overall winner, or just someone who has won something?  

Well, no such thing as a free lunch…. Offering prizes gets invites to judge, teach master classes etc at prestigious competitions.

And certain AD’s of institutions seem to do quite a lot of this…whilst barely teaching or knowing their own institution’s talent!

[Sophoife]

On 30/01/2024 at 10:54, Sophoife said:

 

There's a Portuguese boy, Gabriel Pimparel, in the senior boys' class, who is a student at English National Ballet School.

 

On 03/02/2024 at 07:55, invisiblecircus said:

 

This year, 4 girls and 1 boy entered from the UK but were not selected to compete in the live rounds in Lausanne. I don't know anything about who these candidates are, whether they're studying at UK schools or abroad, or are private candidates. 

 

ENBS student Gabriel Pimparel did indeed compete in the live rounds, representing and supported by his school.

 

@invisiblecircus I was curious about the source of those numbers, and found your initial PdL post in the Doing Dance sub-forum, which links to a pdf showing numbers of entrants and finalists by nationality (thank you).

 

The difficulty with quoting that is it doesn't show where the candidates train. So yes, 5 British students might have sent in videos, but as you say, no idea where they train. And on that same pdf the ENBS student would be counted as Portugal not Britain.

 

Hm. Wonder if I emailed them the PdL people would tell me how many British schools were represented in the initial 400+?

Edited February 4 by Sophoife

[Pas de Quatre]

There is a table that PdL published when it first announced those selected to take part. It shows name, nationality, school and country. I will see if I can upload later. Another one shows number of entrants by country and number selected.

[invisiblecircus]

2 hours ago, Pas de Quatre said:

There is a table that PdL published when it first announced those selected to take part. It shows name, nationality, school and country. I will see if I can upload later. Another one shows number of entrants by country and number selected.

 

It only shows name, nationality, school and country of those selected to participate in the live rounds in Lausanne, it does not give those details for all those who applied. The document showing the total number of applicants only gives their nationalities and not where they trained.

Number of applicants:
nombre-de-candidats-pdl-2024-1.pdf (prixdelausanne.org)

Selected to the live rounds:
selected-candidates-2024-1.pdf (prixdelausanne.org)

[Pas de Quatre]

Yes, those are the tables I was thinking of.  I suspect it is just too cumbersome for admin to compile charts of all details for all those who entered!

[Aklf]

Firstly- Congratulations to all of the hugely talented dancers performing at the Prix this year!

 

I was curious and skimmed through the top prize winners in the past 10 years. I believe there have been only 2 female gold medal winners in that period and the most recent 5 years have all been won by men.

 

Can anyone who is familiar with the history of the competition  let me know whether the format has always been the same? It seems that the jury may have a tough time evaluating the dancers given the vastly different repertoire presented by men and  women.

 

For me personally, it would be far easier to have separate male and female winners. The sheer virtuosity displayed by the men is hugely impressive and difficult to beat in terms of gravity defying leaps and turns- Such dynamics and power. By contrast, the women are wearing pointe shoes and presenting repertoire that often requires it to be judged against a more nuanced set of criteria and skills.

 

As the vast majority of classical

Ballets feature separate male and female Solos and also PDD, I feel there is space to celebrate the best of each. The repertoire has been choreographed and designed to showcase the different strengths of each so it would be wonderful to reflect that in an equitable way in the prize giving. 
 

(Hope ok to cross post here, didn’t realise there were 2 Prix active threads so posted on Doing Dance by mistake!) 

[MAX]

I follow the competition since 1980, it has evolved in many ways but the format (female / male) has always been the same.

 

Personally I don't think the gender issue is the most important one, but we could imagine that a different ranking between the two groups of candidates (junior / senior) could be interesting.

 

History of the competition : in 1980 the young American Nancy-Ann Raffa won the gold medal (at the time without scholarship).

 

Four scholarships were awarded to Alessandra Ferri / Patrick Armand / Deborah Bull / Marie-Laure Keller.

 

A documentary followed the competition that year. In the first editions there was no pre-selection, but candidates were eliminated every day, sometimes even after the first lesson. In the film, part of the jury's deliberations is shown and someone says "boys are always given better marks than girls and then it's not necessarily what you want in terms of the ranking".  

 

Back then there were far fewer male candidates, and I think things have changed a lot over the last 40 years but I may be wrong ?

 

Edited February 4 by MAX

[Kerfuffle]

There is a large overlap between YAGP and PdL candidates this year and I think it’s likely that more than one of them performed the same variation  in both competitions (Natalie Steele won YAGP with  the same Aurora variation  a couple of years ago). I think the reason why there are fewer Brits is because we don’t train kids either vocationally or non vocationally to enter competitions unlike USA and other countries that are old hands on the YAGP circuit. On Doing Dance forum it’s been mentioned that a lot of ADs have decided to leave their positions - not many recognisable faces were in the panel. It will be interesting to see who replaces them and what impact that has on ballet competitions - will a different kind of dancer become fashionable ? I noticed in the coaching that one of the younger dancers was being told to be more varied in her approach, to soften the performance between the flashy big jumps. This seemed to be emphasising the artistry which would be a welcome thing, over the tricks. 

[Jane S]

The final 'Rising Stars' concert, including former prize winners Madison Young and Julian Mackay, is on Medici TV this afternoon, starting 2 pm GMT.

[DD Driver]

It seemed to me that this year there were more combined classes e.g. A & B girls all together.  I think this makes it harder for individuals to be seen.  I would hope it changes back next year.

 

[LinMM]

Well I still haven’t watched the 20 finalists pieces but have found this difficult to get into this year. From watching the classes nobody has so far been a standout for me. 
I think maybe I’m not so keen any more on watching so many over prepared Pieces. 
I think it needs shaking up a bit. 
I want to see the students dancing more unprepared choreography …no previous notice given or allowed!! 

Anyway will see how I feel once seen the final pieces. 
I do like Natalie Steele but am disappointed she has been showing the same classical Piece for so long! 

[Kerfuffle]

Same here @LinMM it’s all so polished and safe looking, both in the classes and the variations. Natalie Steele’s technique has improved since YAGP but I don’t find her performance very engaging maybe she’s been doing it for too long! It would be better if there were pieces choreographed for the competition so that it really was a fresh performance and no chance for prior rehearsing. It could be more age appropriate for the 15 year olds. 

It looks to me like a lot of these dancers peak too soon, they don’t really understand the meaning of the variation or its context. It’s like watching virtuoso pianists/violinists  aged 4 doing difficult pieces or 10 year old prodigies  singing opera.
 

Ballet like all top art forms take many years to really get good at and a lot of that is just hard graft in the studio, improving slowly and surely. 

[Sabine0308]

I watched the finals yesterday and was a bit surprised about the prize winners "ranking".

Paloma did stand out for me with her contemporary piece (smooth, sexy, fluid) more than with the classical. Not because the classical variation (Gamzatti) was "bad" but because it didn't give her much chance to express herself, I noticed that only with a wink of her hand.

 

Since sooo many finalists had chosen "do you care?" as their contemporary piece, it bored me a bit.

 

Some people complained that M. Mcintire (from the US, and a well-known prize winner there) was not even among the finalists. From my point of view, she has a good technique but obviously her teachers told her to include some "acrobatic" moves, rather than focus on artistic expression. And the jury did not approve. To me her classical variation (La Esmeralda) didn't look like a dance at all, it was more about a calculated step by step variation and acrobatic leg poses. Where was the passion? Sad.

 

A junior dancer from Japan (207, Taichi Toshidi) who won scholarship no. 9 was on my "😁list" from the beginning and was the exact opposite. Jumping onstage with such a bravado and energy for his "La fille mal gardee" variation, it was pure joy to see him dance. He DANCES was my first note about him, during coaching. Bravo.

 

Overall, I missed a stand out talent in both categories.

 

I support the idea of either doing a male/female competition (this would be my first thing to change if I had a say about it).

Or junior/senior competition. Although some Juniors make it into the finals, it seems a bit unfair to compete as a junior against people with longer education and more experience.

 

 

Edited February 4 by Sabine0308

[Birdy]

As an aside about American schools training more for competitions…Natalie Steele only started at ABT this fall, coming from a school known for doing well at YAGP. ABT doesn’t train students for competitions and generally doesn’t allow students to compete. An exception must have been made for her.

[LinMM]

I did like Paloma in her contemporary piece very much. 
Unfortunately I don’t like the Harlequinade Piece that much anyway so thought the main winner didn’t stand out enough for me compared to other years. 
Now of course all these young dancers are of a high standard so not saying they didn’t perform well but I didn’t really feel that excited by anybody this year and usually somebody often more than one has really grabbed my attention! 
One of the French boys from Princess Grace school was promising ( 417) but thought he lacked strength and artistry at this point compared to the boy who spent a year at the Royal last year …name escapes me currently!! 
I think there are actually too many female candidates something not quite right with the balance. 
Just edited the young dancer I was thinking of above won in 2022 …not last year …and that was Darrion Sellman. 

Edited February 4 by LinMM

[MAX]

Too many female candidates ? what are you talking about LinMM not sure to understand.

 

88 candidates this year in Lausanne (44 female / 44 male)

 

20 candidates in the finale (10/10)

 

[LinMM]

It’s probably because have been watching in a lop sided way this year so there seemed more girls than boys! 
I still haven’t looked at the entry listings so was watching the classes blind as it were. So certainly was not influenced by any particular school taking part. There was something different this year will work out what it was eventually!!

[Tattin]

Many very interesting comments . thank you to you all. 

 

I am inclined to agree with Aklf that the time has come to separate the boys and girls, now that so many boys compete. The spectacular virtuosity of the ballet vocabulary for the male solos does tend to put the more subtle and expressive female solos in the shade when they are competing on equal terms.

[MAX]

Jury members are able to see things in the blink of an eye, much faster than the most diligent ballet lover.

 

They know which solos are difficult and they're not fooled by spectacular virtuosity.

 

So, in my opinion, the question of separating the boys and the girls doesn't arise.

This year 9 scholarships were awarded (4 women / 5 men);
in 2023 11 scholarships  (7 women / 4 men); 
in 2022 9 scholarships (5 women / 4 men).
Total those last three editions : 29 scholarships (16 women / 13 men)

Edited February 4 by MAX

[Peanut68]

1 hour ago, MAX said:

Too many female candidates ? what are you talking about LinMM not sure to understand.

 

88 candidates this year in Lausanne (44 female / 44 male)

 

20 candidates in the finale (10/10)

 

I’m guessing what was meant was the level and original entries pre-live rounds being higher % female to male. If then equal numbers of F to M get to live round then the odds are higher for a make dancer to get a place in the live comp than a female entrant 

[MAX]

I know,  you are right concerning this aspect !

Edited February 4 by MAX

[DD Driver]

1 hour ago, Tattin said:

Many very interesting comments . thank you to you all. 

 

I am inclined to agree with Aklf that the time has come to separate the boys and girls, now that so many boys compete. The spectacular virtuosity of the ballet vocabulary for the male solos does tend to put the more subtle and expressive female solos in the shade when they are competing on equal terms.

 

I do think the increased volume of combined classes (junior with seniors) made it less interesting to watch.

Also harder for dancers to show their individual strengths or to get seen doing so.

 

The Paris Opera coaches ask for musicality, which in my experience at PdL, means triples become doubles.  Not all dancers follow this coaching.  I don't know if judges are aware of/agree with these choices.  Probably individual judge's preferences at that stage.

[MAX]

What do you mean by "if judges are aware of /agree with these choices" ?

 

The choice to ask for musicality ?