Koltun dancers COURTESY KOLTUN BALLET BOSTON 771×722 1
March 20, 2023 Submitted by Jennifer Astin
More than two dozen young Massachusetts dancers, most from the Greater Boston area, comprise a team from Koltun Ballet Boston (KBB) that won several Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) awards and accolades last month including the Outstanding School Award. This is the fourth time in five years the organization has been recognized as the region’s top school. The regional leg of this ongoing international competition was held last month in Worcester. Two KBB ensembles that participated last month have been invited to the YAGP Finals in Tampa, Fla. from April 3-9, 2023. YAGP is a global dance network that hosts the world’s largest student ballet scholarship competition.
Ranging in age from 10 to 18 years and among the top dancers at KBB, the team’s 26 students come from ten Massachusetts communities: nine in Greater Boston and one near Springfield. Collectively they won the Outstanding School Award for overall performance in the competition including an ensemble performance of “Weather” (above, photo courtesy KBB), a new work by dancemaker Lesley Telford. Telford won the Outstanding Choreographer Award for the piece, which KBB commissioned specifically for YAGP.
