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YAGP 25th Anniversary Season Final Round at Lincoln Center April 2024


Roberta

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I watched this live online through the night, livestream from New York, here is the YouTube recording of the Senior Finals, there is a great deal more on the Youth America Grand Prix YouTube Channel, all ages, rounds and Masterclasses. Though it is called the YAGP the competition is international and the standard of training and performing very high indeed. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/@YAGP/streams

 

Awards include further training at selected international schools and, for some lucky older students, contracts with companies. 

 

It begins on an impressive note with Dancer 503 and Walpurgis Night.  Kohina Nakatani age 15 from Japan. 

 

So much talent, so many hopefuls! 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Roberta
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Thanks for the link @Roberta. I'm still confused about the "25th Anniversary" because last year, they did the promotion for the Gala at Lincoln Center New York with exactly that label.🤔

Also, for the gala this year,  3 dancers from Mariinsky had been invited to perform. I subscribed to YAGP newsletter last year, so I do know that their names have been on the Gala announcement for quite some time. So today, I found a letter which states that their names had been kept secret until 2 days ago, which is clearly not true. I attach the letter here. While I understand the anger of the author, I still think a lie is still a lie and does the author no good.

 

Screenshot_20240419_005504_Firefox.jpg

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39 minutes ago, Sabine0308 said:

I'm still confused about the "25th Anniversary" because last year, they did the promotion for the Gala at Lincoln Center New York with exactly that label.🤔

 

I'm assuming that 2023 was heralded as the start of the 25th anniversary season and the season has carried on through all the rounds of the competition to 2024, culminating in the gala. 

 

https://yagp.org/newsletter-summer-2023/

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It's a shame. They flew over to NY only to learn last minute that their performance had been cancelled by the Koch Theatre (not by YAGP). It's either lack of communication between YAGP and the Koch theatre, or ignorance and then a sudden shock by Koch when they were criticized. From Maria Khoreva's IG account: "...Art will always find a way to human soul."

❤️❤️❤️

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While it must be  disappointing for the artists to find out like this at the last minute  there is a moral dilemma for theatres when considering inviting performers  from Russia. The ROH cancelled the Bolshoi’s tour here after the Ukraine war broke out. 

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Anastasia Smirnova (rising star and first soloist at Mikhailovsky) performed at Segerstrom Arts in California and Montana with Julian Mackay both in Summer 2023 without any opposition that I heard.  
 

So it was reasonable to assume this would be ok.  It’s a gala to inspire young dancers.
 

It’s brave of YAGP to try to break the barriers.  I’m sure YAGP and the Mariinsky dancers knew the risks they were taking.  
 

Classical music doesn’t seem to suffer from these same barriers.  I see many Russian based performers continuing to tour with European orchestras.  I am guessing that’s because the musicians have long term contracts with Western music organisations (Warner, Sony, etc). It’s always about money 🙄 

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I think this has happened to Russian opera singers in USA too.Singers are often freelance.
 Ballet is used as soft power by Russia  and has been strongly associated with politics, eg the use of Swan Lake in the USSR times. Khoreva is a huge Instagram star with a massive following amongst young dancers but she is state funded too. Having her fly in and perform gives the impression that there is no war going on. Considering the precarious situation of the Ukraine war  I am not surprised if the theatre have cancelled. 

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