Rain delay, then winning ballet

Ballet is not often rained out.

But after dozens of "Don Quixote" variations and a passel of "Paquitas," the Youth America Grand Prix regional semifinals had to be postponed Saturday night when heavy rain and high winds knocked out the power at the Swarthmore College competition site.

The semifinals are the gateway to next month's YAGP finals in New York, where regional winners from dance programs around the world will compete for prizes and opportunities to study at the schools of ballet's top companies.

At Swarthmore last weekend, when the lights came back on and the competition resumed and the final numbers were crunched, the Rock stars - top students at Philadelphia's Rock School for Dance Education - had prevailed.

Esteban Hernandez, 13, had the best showing, winning the Youth Grand Prix for dancers age 12 to 14. The award goes to the best dancer, male or female, and combines classical and contemporary scores.

"It was OK," Hernandez said of his performance. ("He's a man of few words," noted Rock School codirector Stephanie Wolf Spassoff.)

Taylor Stanley, 16, danced powerfully throughout and earned a medal of each color for his efforts: gold with Kara Hanretty, 18, for their duet, "OFF"; silver in the senior classical division (tied with another Rock student, Sara Michelle Murawski, 16); and bronze in the contemporary category (tied with Emmy Kitka of Pittsburgh).

"There were some glitches" in the duet, Stanley said, "but nothing the audience could tell."

Beckanne Sisk, 15, was awarded the gold medal for contemporary dance in the senior division. Despite a slippery stage - many dancers were cautious and several fell - she pulled off five revolutions in a pirouette en pointe in her solo, "Appassionato," choreographed by Servy Gallardo. She also was chosen as one of nine finalists in the model search sponsored by Discount Dance Supply, a catalog company. Along with a beautiful face, she is gifted with feet that stretch into an exceptionally gorgeous arch in pointe shoes.

Millis Faust, 14, danced off with a gold medal for classical performance in the junior category, the only division in which men and women were given separate awards. She won for her variation from "Paquita."

Lawrence Rines, 17, was awarded a bronze in the senior classical ballet category.

A dislocated shoulder did not deter Skyler Lubin, 15, and her noncompeting partner, Richard Hankes, 20, who suffered the injury. They received the bronze medal for their wonderfully joyful duet, "Spring Waters," after Hankes popped his shoulder back in place and lifted Lubin up and offstage on the second try.

The Rock also was one of three Mid-Atlantic schools given the Outstanding School Award; the others were Ellison Ballet Professional Training Program in New York, and Mid-Atlantic Center for the Performing Arts in Joppa, Md.

For more than an hour Saturday night, dancers milled about the Lang Performing Arts Center halls and lobby in tutus, pointe shoes and hoodies. Everyone agreed the show must go on, but it was unclear when or where. A backup generator lit the house and hallways after the music died at 5:45 p.m., but there wasn't enough power to run the event.

"When the lights went off, I thought, 'Should I stay and do my variation in silence or should I go offstage?' " said Zsofia Solta, 15, of New Canaan, Conn., who was left dancing in the dark. "So I stayed and did a few steps and then I ran offstage."

Solta got a redo of her "Giselle" variation Sunday morning, when the final 50 danced, among them Rock's Murawski, Stanley, Rines and Hanretty.

"In nine years, this never happened!" said Larissa Saveliev, the former Bolshoi Ballet dancer, who founded the Grand Prix with her husband, American Ballet Theatre soloist Gennadi Saveliev. "We're always worried about snow in Denver and Chicago!"

The Grand Prix had been scheduled only for Friday and Saturday, but, as luck would have it, the Rock was staging a show in the Lang on Sunday and rearranged its schedule to accommodate the final competitors on Sunday morning (extra early, too, since Daylight Saving Time started overnight).

Given the circumstances, the awards ceremony was canceled; dancers were notified via e-mail and results were posted on the YAGP Web site, www.yagp.org.

Eighteen Rock students, including Miria Matsuda, 16, scored high enough to make it to the April 16-21 New York finals.

Bojan Spassoff, Rock's codirector, said some Rock students danced better than others, but his wife took a more philosophical approach. "On the whole, I was very pleased," Stephanie Wolf Spassoff said. "Every single one of them has danced light years better than when we started the process."

Her advice to the students: "Do it because you love to dance."