Youth America Grand Prix Gala

Ballet stars from across the globe will join Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) – the world’s largest ballet scholarship organization – to celebrate this year’s Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow Gala on April 29, at Lincoln Center in New York City.

YAGP Founder and Artistic Director Larissa Saveliev has created a program that features a U.S. premiere from Lucia Lacarra and Matthew Golding (YAGP alumnus), choreographed by Golding; Paris Opera Ballet’s Germain Louvet and Hannah O’Neill (YAGP alumna) will perform Le Parc by Angelin Prejlocaj; O’Neill and Friedemann Vogel (Stuttgart Ballet) will dance a pas de deux from Act III of Onegin by John Cranko. Louvet will also present a rare variation from Rudolf Nureyev’s Swan Lake. The Stuttgart Ballet’s newest soloist, Yana Peneva (YAGP alumna), will make her NY debut performing the pas de deux from Act II of Le Corsaire with Daniil Simkin.

Ballet Dortmund’s Artistic Director Xin Peng Wang (in his final season) will present a world premiere, performed by dancers Samuel Bassler and Daria Suzi, making their New York debuts.

The evening also features a world premiere choreographed and performed by Isaiah Day (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater), with an original composition and live musical performance by Emmy-nominated pianist and composer, Matthew Whitaker. Day will be recognized as one of two YAGP 2025 Emerging Choreographers, along with Chicago-based Hanna Brictson, whose piece Q will have its world premiere at the YAGP 2025 Gala.

The YAGP International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), featuring 25 young dancers selected from global YAGP auditions, will present the U.S. premiere of an excerpt from PUPO by acclaimed Italian choreographer Sofia Nappi.

A highlight of the program includes the winners of the YAGP 2025 international ballet competition, sharing the stage with their ballet idols in a grand performance to bring the season to a close.

At the Gala dinner following the performance, philanthropist Sarah Hoover will be honored for her lifelong devotion to ballet. Hoover fundraises for multiple dance organizations and has co-founded American Ballet Theatre’s Accelerator Committee, which encourages cross-pollination between art, fashion, film and choreography. She sits on the board of Art Production Fund, which curates and produces major public art projects across the United States. Hoover is an author and has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Vogue.

YAGP is the largest global network of dance. YAGP fulfills its mission of dance education through scholarship auditions, master classes, alumni services, performances and education.

Over the past 26 years, $5 million has been awarded 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 – ages nine to 19 – of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds have participated in YAGP’s international workshops, audition classes and dance awareness events.

This season, 15,000 talented young dancers from 86 countries on five continents auditioned all over the world for a spot in the YAGP Finals. Many of those winners have the one-in-a-lifetime chance to share a stage with their idols, today’s biggest ballet stars, on stage at Lincoln Center.

Five hundred 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 organization 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 safely continue their dance training. 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 bi-annually 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 recognized YAGP as America’s National Youth Dance Competition.

For more information, visit yagp.org/yagp-2025-gala.

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