kz917-1 Documentary that follows the journey of several students across the world to compete at the Grand Prix and win scholarships prestigious schools and dance ballet at the highest level. Several parents seem to have more drive than the students. To them ballet is life, air and water. They live it, breathe it and if things don't go their way they just might be crushed. Some will crash others will triumph, either way there will be tears.

TxMike As the credits roll there is a sentence thanking everyone for having faith in a "first time filmmaker." And she did a fine job indeed. Over the past few years I have seen several documentaries featuring school-age kids, one preparing for a high school jazz competition, another for scholarships to cooking schools, plus a few others. What always strikes me is how dedicated these kids are, the antithesis of lost kids roaming the streets, looking to get into mischief.The subject of is film is the 2010 world-wide competition to identify future ballet stars. A few thousand kids compete at semi-final sites around the world, and about the 200 best converge on New York for the finals, where some will get scholarships and some will get hired into a ballet company.Interestingly the IMDb credits don't mention perhaps the best dancer featured, a boy of 11 named Aran. His parents are US military and when he competed they were stationed in Italy.For me the most inspiring story was of Michaela Deprince, who as a young girl in war-torn Sierra Leone witnessed her parents killed during their civil war in the 1990s. She and another girl were adopted by an American couple and grew up with a normal life, and now she is an accomplished and successful ballet dancer. The other that I found greatly interesting is Joan (pronounced 'JOE-nn') Sebastian Zamora, a 16-yr-old boy from Columbia. He seemed mature way beyond his age and is dedicated to his dancing. He was a superb dancer at 16, and was hired by England's Royal Ballet.Overall a fine documentary with just the right emphasis on the semis and the finals, and just the right parceling of time among the featured contestants. Even if a person is not a particular fan of ballet (like me) it is enjoyable for the story being told. We hear too much news of kids getting into trouble, we don't hear enough of the good kids who are dedicated and work hard for what they want.

blanche-2 Producer/Director Beth Kargman has put together a wonderful documentary that follows six young ballet dancers to the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the most important of all ballet competitions worldwide.The prizes at the competition include awards of recognition, scholarships, and work with major dance companies. The dancers are in several age ranges and ethnicities and include 11-year-old Aaron Bell, Joan Sebastian Zamora, a dancer from Colombia, Michaela Deprince,a black dancer, Jules and Miko Fogarty, of mixed ethnicity, pretty Israeli Gaya Bommer, and all-American girl Rebecca Houseknecht.Michaela and her sister were adopted from Sierra Leone, where there was nothing but death and poverty. Michaela has been told that blacks make unsuitable ballet dancers -- bad feet, too muscular, wrong build etc. For the competition, her teacher has her dance against type, doing a feminine, delicate dance.Zamora lives in New York, far away from his family, but his father tells him there is nothing for him in Colombia and he has to go after his dream. Rebecca is a cheerleader and normal kid whose passion is dance, and Aaron doesn't tell other kids he's a dancer. All of them have great talent, as we can see from their dance routines at the Grand Prix. Zamora has stardom written all over him. Jules has decided he really doesn't like ballet, which hurts his mother, but she accepts it.A very inspiring documentary about youngsters from different backgrounds and social status with the dream of dancing in the ballet, and the sacrifices they have made to achieve their goal. The dancing is heavenly; I only wish there had been more of it.Good luck to all these kids. I'm sure we'll be hearing about most of them as time goes on.

jdesando First Position takes a front row in my line up of competition documentaries. It's exceptional because it doesn't overdo its reverence for ballet, nor does it play on a natural sympathy for young competitors from 9 through 19 years old. It would be easy to fawn over youngsters who have only two and a half minutes to persuade judges that they are the best among hundreds of ambitious artists.It keeps the tension of the race to the finals of the Youth America Grand Prix while it invests just the right amount of time with six selected dancers, some of whom fortuitously go to the finals and win, if not the gold , then full scholarships to dance academies, not a bad substitute at all. The camera follows, as is tradition, the endless practices with the demanding coaches, but this time both principals and teachers seem to enjoy the process as much as the awards. There's respectful, low key camaraderie among all the competitors, coaches, and parents that is unusual for these contests and documentaries about them.The range of contestants is the believable, not hyped part I liked so much. While cheerful ten year old Jules Fogarty clearly isn't into dance or the competition, sixteen-year old Joan Sebastian Zamora will earn a top spot at the Grand Prix finals in New York because he cares just enough. Such is the way ambition should work out in the best of all possible worlds.Best of all the dancers, for me, is 11 year old Aran Bell, whose ambition is matched by his awesome talent with a litheness only a dancer years older could have. Michaela, originally from Sierra Leone, is the most surprising talent, given the horrors she has seen and the physical challenges she must overcome.Director Bess Kargman, following six contestants for over a year, does simple magic with director of photography Nick Higgins, sometimes forsaking the competition footage for the more intimately personal, with arguably limited results when the winners are announced as we want to agree with the decisions. More time on stage might have enlisted our cooperation.A case could be made for the superiority of the ballroom dance Mad Hot Ballroom, poetry team Louder Than a Bomb, horse racing's First Saturday in May, or spelling bee Spellbound because they concentrate on the intensity of the actual competition and open up criticism of the contest itself. No such negativity appears here, a weakness for those who would like the reality of disappointment and hurt to extend beyond Michaela's sore foot.But for me, it's nice to be relaxed as we hope these young competitors still are.