Choosing the Right Variation for a Ballet Competition
Ask Two Experts:
Inna Bayer and Crystal Huang
A new school year has started. Are you planning to compete at a ballet competition this year? Choosing the right variation is key for making your experience as valuable and successful as possible. But what principles should guide your choice? TWoA talked to two people who know: Inna Bayer, artistic director of Bayer Ballet Academy (named “Outstanding School” by Youth America Grand Prix for six consecutive years, 2018-2024), and one of her students, Crystal Huang, prize winner at the Prix de Lausanne 2024, the Youth America Grand Prix 2024, 2024 YoungArts (Dance/Ballet) and of the Grand Prix at the 2024 South Africa International Ballet Competition.
Inna, how do you choose competition variations for your students?
This is actually a very difficult question. It should be a balance between showing off their strengths while helping them grow through the process of preparing for a competition. They are going to a competition, so they should show something that is “wow”! And everybody has a different “wow.” For some, it’s turns, extensions or jumps, and for others, it may be grace and a beautiful quality of movement.
But of course, it is our role as teachers to help a child improve. That is also a reason why it is important that a child doesn’t dance the same variation over and over again, or different variations using only the same elements, as we are building well-rounded dancers.
For a dancer like Crystal, who has been competing for many years, when you select a variation, you don’t just tell them what they will do; you listen to their goals, dreams and preferences and discuss options that help the dancer grow and highlight their strengths.
Crystal, how did you and Ms. Inna choose your variation for the Prix de Lausanne?
For the Prix de Lausanne, we had a list of six variations to choose from, we couldn’t make our own choice. We went through each one. We wanted to find one that would help me improve, but also show off my strengths, since it's still a competition. We picked Gulnara because it could show off my strengths while helping me improve a lot in different areas: becoming more classical, more technical.
Gulnara is a variation I hadn’t really done as much before because the years prior, I did Esmeralda, Harlequinade, Kitri - more charismatic variations. For the Prix de Lausanne, I was in group A for ages fifteen and sixteen. We didn't get Esmeralda, Grand Pas Classique, all the harder variations, the kind of variations I would normally do. It was a challenge getting a list with only six, more simple variations.
But we worked really hard. I don’t think I could have done it with anyone else but Ms. Inna. We just really worked to make it look good on me. Going into the Prix de Lausanne, I didn't think it would end up going so well. I didn't know how doing a variation like Gulnara would turn out in the end. But it turned out great! I learned a lot from doing Gulnara. I think it helped me broaden my ability to do different kinds of variations.
Inna adding some final touches to Crystal's make-up. Prix de Lausanne 2024.
Inna, what is the difference between coaching a variation for a competition and coaching a longer piece for a performance?
For example, for the Prix de Lausanne, the goal was to prepare a very effective, very exciting variation of Gulnara. It is a very emotive variation, requiring Crystal to utilize her acting skills, while working at the highest technical level. When it’s only one variation, not a full ballet, then we just mostly concentrate on the variation’s technical components and artistic qualities, while making it look exciting, professional, and authentically stylized. For me, it’s very important that the dancers really understand the difference in style between variations such as Gulnara, Esmeralda, Paquita, Odette, and Odile! We chose Cavalry Halt for Youth America Grand Prix, which showcased other aspects of Crystal’s strengths.
If you watch her performances at these competitions, you will see the cumulative value that these competitions serve. In shorter formats, such as competitions, we work together to succinctly express the character’s story and ensure that each movement is correct, stylistically. When we work on a production like Bayer Ballet’s Snow Queen, a two-act ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, we are able to take a deeper dive into storytelling. The dancers learn how to express a wide range of emotions while carrying a storyline. Both competitions and full-length productions are an important aspect of the dancer’s training, providing opportunities to learn a wide range of classical masterpieces, while telling a story through a full-length ballet or a short variation.
Crystal, while you were working on Gulnara, what elements of your dancing did you improve, and what strengths were you building on?
My strength was definitely turns. For Gulnara, I had to work a lot on port de bras, épaulement, classical lines, to be on top of my legs, to have good hip placement, to make everything flow very nicely so that there are no stops, no sudden hiccups. I had to work on speed and the lightness of my jumps at the beginning of Gulnara. Musicality, of course, because the track they gave us for Gulnara was very quick. Normally, if you were to do Gulnara at a competition where you can pick your track, it would be way slower. But the Prix de Lausanne gave us a really quick track and we couldn't change it.
Inna, would you like to expand on this?
We did the original choreography from the Mariinsky. Maybe with a different choreography, it might be much easier to fit to this tempo. But we developed the variation using the original choreography, so this tempo was difficult. But we tried and we made it. Crystal’s experience is unique because she is a very versatile dancer with a strong commercial dance background. She absorbed so many intricacies of the Vaganova method of classical ballet in just one school year, as a member of our Professional Coaching Day Program. Her arms, the shape of her hands, her head, épaulement, port de bras, smooth transitions from pose to pose. One needs to do the poses and the transitions perfectly. It was difficult, we had very little time, but it’s possible with a child like this who really wants to work and is so open to learning. Crystal has a unique part of her personality: she easily understands what you want from her and it’s easy for her to send the right signal to her body. The connection between understanding and telling your body what to do is very good in her case.
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