cierra19

I will trust the person didn't like those two dancers, or their pieces, but the dancers both in my opinion are exquisite, and their pieces were wonderful. Whitney is unbelievably amazing and fascinating and extremely elegant, and Sara Michelle (a new one on the scene) is also sublime. Many there found both of them equally extraordinary and hope to see more of them in the future.

one last note, it was not all about flash and tricks. Larissa seemed to pick some pieces for the purity and beaity and some for the flash. So please appreciate the variety. That contemporary piece was certainly worthy of appreciation for its purity and beauty. This is true art. The same dancer did a tricky classical, in the sense that it required lots of piourettes and she executed them very, very well! So, you have to know the artistry aspect of dance in order to also appreciate pieces that are artistic and pure. The piece deserved to be in the line up very much.

In one breath, you're calling them all winnners; in the next, you are putting down the girl from the Rock who did her contemporary. Whatever. She was beautiful. And I am sure Larissa put her there for exactly that reason. Please refrain from such comments about a child who dances in such an amazing event. It took a lot of bravery for any of them up there. If you don't have something nice to say about someone, then talk about someone else about whom you have something nice to say. Well if you are refering to my post. I was trying to report and who I saw, what they danced and a bit of editorial comment on my opinion on the performances all in one. I think there were people at the gala who had not sat at the competition with a program and was trying to make it easier for them to figure out who was who. I felt that the young ladies contemporary was not anything out of the ordinary and seemed out of place in the line up. I felt the same way about Whitney Jenson and her partner doing the pas de deux I would like to have seen the first or second place pas de deux winners which I did not see at the competition. I heard that they were really excellent. I have seen Larissa put up pieces that did not even make the final round that were interesting and different and worked really well. Obviously Larissa thought differently and it is her show. She always does an awesome job I just felt it was out of place in the line-up.

That sentiment is certainly appreciated- I was merely making a direct and specific reply to the comment that was made about the issue of the gala performers. The post had stated that there was not enough room for all of the "winners" to perform, which clearly implied that the dancers from top 12 were not all winners. The person writing the original post likely did not intend it this way, but the post itself simply implies that only the top 3 would be the "winners." The question raised was about how it was possible for someone in the top 12 to perform in gala if all dancers from the top 3 in every category was not able to perform. The post I left was merely to say that it appears that yagp labeled the "winners" as those in top 12. Afterall, some use of labels seems logical, particularly since it was a "competition." So I hope that my reply to that specific aspect of the post did not start the process of changing the topic to semantics and/or the use of the word "winner," as I did not mean to lead into this topic at all. It our shared sentiment and loyalty about all dancers which allows use to view them as all being the winners in our minds, if not in ceremony. I hope this clarifies my reply to that post. Of course, getting up on a stage in NYC and doing a solo takes a lot of nerve for any youth to execute; so they are all amazing winners. The dancers this year were talented and extraordinary beyond anything I have ever seen from amateurs anywhere.

correction: The young girl from the Rock school who did her contemporary in the gala was Sara Michelle Murawski. She was a top 12 senior, and it seems that they consider the entire top 12 group to be the 'winners.'