Youth America Grand Prix’s 2026 Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow Gala
Ballet stars will join Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) – the world’s largest ballet scholarship organisation – to celebrate this year’s Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow Gala on Thursday 16 April at the David H Koch Theater, Lincoln Center in New York City. Misty Copeland (recently retired from American Ballet Theatre) will host.
YAGP Founder and Artistic Director Larissa Saveliev will present a programme featuring the New York debuts of Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko from La Scala Ballet, alongside the return of Polina Semionova from Berlin State Ballet. Manni and Andrijashenko will perform the pas de deux from Mauro Bigonzetti’s Caravaggio, debuting in New York, as well as the Grand Pas Classique. Semionova will dance the first-act pas de deux from Manon by Kenneth MacMillan, and a unique collaboration with LA-based contemporary dancer Braylon Browner on The Dying Swan. Reece Clarke from The Royal Ballet will perform with Christine Shevchenko of American Ballet Theatre and Roman Mejía of New York City Ballet in the second act pas de trois from Le Corsaire. YAGP alumna and former American Ballet Theatre dancer Melanie Hamrick, one of the evening’s honourees, will also present her original work She’s a Rainbow, set to music by The Rolling Stones, performed by Shevchenko and Calvin Royal III.
The programme will also feature New York premieres by leading contemporary choreographers Sharon Eyal (performed by the YAGP International Contemporary Ensemble), Itzik Galili, and Marco Goecke. 100 YAGP competition finalists – the most promising young talent from around the world – have been carefully chosen to perform in a Piece d’Occasion, in the tradition of YAGP’s annual Grand Defilé showcase of the next generation of talented young artists.
Gala guests will have the opportunity to bid on custom designer pointe shoes, with all proceeds supporting young dancers pursuing professional careers. This year’s Pointe Project designers include LoveShackFancy, Monse, All III, Alice and Olivia, A-Morir, Lapointe, and Renna Brown. LoveShackFancy Founder and Creative Director, Rebecca Hessel Cohen, and former American Ballet Theatre dancer and choreographer, Melanie Hamrick, will be honoured at the Gala.
On Saturday 18 April, YAGP will host a second evening at the David H. Koch Theater, the YAGP International Dance School Festival. Top ballet students from all over the world will perform works representing each school’s style and artistic tradition. The schools represented are ABT Studio Company and JKO School (USA), Houston Ballet II (USA), John Cranko School of the Stuttgart Ballet (Germany), La Scala Ballet Academy (Italy), Princess Grace Academy (Monaco), The Rock School for Dance (USA), The Royal Ballet School (UK), and Zurich Dance Academy (Switzerland).
The YAGP 2026 Season Finals will be held for the first time in Houston, TX, hosted by Houston Ballet. 2,000 dancers, hand-selected from more than 15,000 students competing across the globe, will perform at the Wortham Theatre Center from 10-18 May. The week-long programme features master classes with acclaimed directors and leaders in the field, hosted at Houston Ballet’s state-of-the-art facilities at the Margaret Alkek Williams Center for Dance. The world’s most promising young dancers will compete in front of a world-renowned jury panel for the chance to receive scholarships and job offers to the world’s leading dance academies and companies, and a closing Gala will be held on May 18th featuring some of today’s biggest ballet stars from American Ballet Theatre, Houston Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and more.
Youth America Grand Prix – facts and figures
Youth America Grand Prix is the largest global dance network. YAGP fulfils its mission of dance education through scholarship auditions, master classes, alumni services, performances, and education.
Over the past 26 years, Youth America Grand Prix has awarded $5 million in scholarships to the world’s leading dance schools, with up to $500,000 now awarded annually. Since YAGP’s founding in 1999, over 300,000 young dancers – aged 9 to 19 – of diverse backgrounds have participated in YAGP’s international workshops, audition classes, and dance awareness events.
500 YAGP alumni are now dancing with 100 professional companies around the world, including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet and many others. Over 100 of these alumni are soloists and Principal Dancers.
In 2019, during the COVID-19 pandemic, YAGP was the first dance organisation to present entirely virtual programming, offering masterclasses and workshops as well as virtual auditions to complete the YAGP season.
In 2022, when the war in Ukraine began, YAGP worked quickly to relocate dance students from Ukraine and place them in YAGP partner schools in Europe and the United States to continue their dance training safely. To date, YAGP’s Ukraine Relief campaign has placed over 200 dancers in safety and on a path to a professional career in dance.
In 2023, YAGP reinstated its Job Fair, now held biannually in Europe at The Stuttgart Ballet’s John Cranko School in Germany and in America at Nashville Ballet.
In 2024, YAGP celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a spectacular festival of dance at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. As part of the anniversary celebrations, 353 young dancers gathered at New York City’s iconic Plaza Hotel to set a Guinness World Record for “Most Dancers En Pointe”, and the United States Senate officially recognised Youth America Grand Prix as America’s National Youth Dance Competition.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
