JACKSON, Miss.—The room is darkened, voices hushed and the only audio yet another snippet of “Don Quixote” coming from the TV screen across the room. The screen is the focal point for a selection committee of two whose job is to whittle down 340 applicants to about 100 who will receive invitations to compete in the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson this June.
As a young dancer on screen snaps her fan and steps lively through the showy variation, the duo mumbles their thoughts. Quick scribbles follow. The papers then are brushed into a basket, and it’s on to the next dancer. This late Sunday morning, Joseph Phillips and Ravenna Tucker Wagnon, holed up in the presidential suite of the Westin Jackson, are approaching the final stretch in an early March weekend devoted to reviewing hundreds of video submissions.
“What are we looking for?” Phillips asks, rhetorically. “The best dancer.”
He would know. Among the USA IBC’s best, Phillips took the junior men’s gold in 2002 in Jackson, one of five golds he has earned in international competitions, which is the most of any American dancer. This feat earned him the “golden boy of ballet” nickname in the press.
Two weeks and three rounds of fierce classical and contemporary ballet competition performances will take place at Thalia Mara Hall this summer as the 12th USA IBC puts a global dance spotlight on Jackson, Miss. Photo by Sherry Lucas
What they have seen so far, Wagnon says, constitutes “a varied level of talent, from very good to very high technical skill with good artistic quality, to some dancers who are quite young, who are 15, and (whom) we feel could have a little bit more time for training, or maybe have a little bit more coaching on the performance details.”
“I think overall, I’ve been impressed, honestly,” Phillips says. “I wasn’t expecting to be as impressed, just because of the pandemic and … everything that’s been going on.”
“Each division has a few dancers that are quite outstanding,” Wagnon adds.
Selection is part artistic and technical evaluation, part numbers game.