Prix de Lausanne faces the future - future of ballet competition

Dance Magazine, July, 1998 by Jenny Veldhuis

The Prix de Lausanne has been one of the most prestigious ballet competitions in the world since it was established in 1972 by Philippe Braunschweig and his wife Elvite. Prompted to help junior dance students obtain the finest instruction so that their talent might develop and flourish, they established this annual ballet competition, accompanied by a week of classes. The competition is unique in that it encourages students from small private ballet schools as well as young dancers from large state-supported schools in a special effort to extend their influence internationally, finals have been held in New York (1985), Tokyo (1989), and in Moscow (1994). The prizes of Lausanne are for further fire dance instruction and coaching at major dance academies such as the Paris Opera Ballet School.

At the twenty-fifth anniversary of the competition, Braunschweig and his wife announced that they would continue to serve as consultants to the competition, but they would step down as directors Braunschweig sew the need to broaden the administrative responsibilities so they were not dependent upon one or two people. Further, he recommended changes in the competition and ancillary events that would bring the Prix forward into the twenty-first century,

The changes in rules and organization for the Prix de Lausanne were subtle the first year following the retirement of Braunschweig, but they proved to be of great importance for the candidates. The changes reflect the attempt to better address and anticipate, the needs of young ballet dancers. Some of this year's innovations are:

* Teachers who accompany competitors may now watch both classical and contemporary classes on television monitors backstage

* All candidates who are eliminated in early competition rounds are given the opportunity to attend a class every day until the end of the week. This, of course, allows them to remain a part of the event until the end.

* Those selected to dance their classical variations are also expected to participate in the contemporary class, This change is on attempt to bring the demands on young dancers more in line with the actual dance practices of today.

* In contrast to previous years' juries, the 1998 jury included four teachers among the ballet directors, ballet masters, and dancers Patrick Armand, principal dancer with Boston Ballet and Prix de Lausanne laureate in 1980; Paola Cantchupo, etoile with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and laureate in 1977; Hideo Fukagawa, choreographer and teacher; Bruce Marks, artistic director emeritus of Boston Ballet and master teacher; Marinello Paneda, artistic director of the Institute of Ballet d'Anvers; Marian Sarsadt, director of dance at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Martin Schlopfer, artistic director of Bern Ballet and laureate in 1977; Tatiano Talakina, teacher and director of the Kiev Ballet School, Youri Vamos, director of Dusseldorf Ballet; and Monica Zamora, principal with the Birmingham Royal Ballet and laurete in 1989. Christine Anthony returned as repetitrice.

Mavis Staines, director of the National Ballet School in Toronto, Canada, was president of the ury Experienced in evaluating and encouraging young dancers, she. gave all candidates every chance. Her wording of the jury's results of the rounds showed respect to each individual Not on easy task when there are 119 first-round candidates to observe This year's jury decided to pass the largest number of candidates ever into the next round out of 97 girls, and 17 out of 21 days. Only 30 candidates, out of which one-third must come from private schools, are then allowed into the semifinals, and 15, Linder the same conditions, into the finals. The 119 candidates this year come from Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and many countries of Europe.

Some very fine dancing was seen from Alone Niehoff and Courtney Wright who studied at Belliston Academy of Ballet in Littleton, Colorado; from Jessica Thomson of Washington School of Ballet; from Kenna Draxton, a student at Ballet West Conservatory in Salt Lake City, and from Ricardo Torres, of the San Francisco Ballet School. Draxton, dancing Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux and Val Coniparoh's Lambarena, Wright, dancing Le Corsoire and Prelude by Mark Carlson, and Torres, dancing Prince Desire's variation from The Sleeping Beauty and Frontiers of Chaos by choreographer Jorge Esquivel, advanced into the semifinal round. Their ranking showed that U.S. training is in keeping with the rest of the dance world's.

The finals showed a fair international collection of dancers, even though five out of the fifteen come from Japan. Japan's twenty-eight entries showed remarkably clean technique and a thorough understanding of all material given to them.

As in 1997, there was no gold medal awarded. Scholarship winners were: Yuichiro Yokoski, Ayako Kikuchi, and Maiko Uemura of Japan; Michael Kopinski of Poland; Veronique Tamaccio of France, Arsen Megrabian of Armenia, and Anu Vilheriaranta of Finland. During the finals, Dr. Hoefliger, vice president of the competition, introduced all candidates, including those who had not made it to this level, and expressed appreciation for all their work before and during the Prix de Lausanne.