Great international Platform for young dancers:
Global Dance Challenge in Vancouver
This past August, Global Dance Challenge celebrated another successful year. This international dance competition, held in beautiful Vancouver Canada, hosted over 200 competitors with a jury of internationally renowned choreographers, teachers and directors from some of the most distinguished companies in the world. These dance luminaries were joined by Peter Boal, Artistic Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet and Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet School, as the President of the Jury. Global Dance challenge (GDC) believes in providing a platform for aspiring dancers to have an extraordinary opportunity to showcase their talents. Chan Hon Goh, Artistic Director of GDC and former principal ballerina of the National Ballet of Canada, created a competition where students would receive professional coaching and masterclasses by world class teachers to cultivate artistic excellence. Global Dance Challenge offered 5 days of various masterclasses for all competitors including their coaching sessions. This year, GDC included marked masterclasses for candidates. Giving them an opportunity to showcase their technical strengths and artistic abilities in the studio as well as when performing onstage. Semi finals were for 2 days at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre on August 13 and 14th 2018. The finals and gala were on August 15th, 2018 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
All competitors had the opportunity to perform in the gala performance. The gala performance also included principal dancers from the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Karel Cruz and Lesley Rausch, who performed Swan Lake Act 2- White Swan Pas De Deux and a Neoclassical piece “After the Rain” choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The GDC gala also featured principal dancers from Ballet Manila, Katherine Barkman and Joseph Phillips, who performed Grand Pas Classique and Simon Hoy’s “The Distance between us”.
Among the many awards given, this year introduced the prestigious GDC Pix D’Or trophy given out to the overall top 3 marks in category A, B, C & D. As well as numerous scholarships were awarded to programs at Goh Ballet Academy, Kirov Ballet Academy, Shanghai Dance School and 11 competitors received full participation scholarships to the Ballet Beyond Borders Competition in January 2019. This year, Goh Ballet Academy’s Ashley Coupal from Canada won gold in the professional ballet category (A) for a second year in a row as well as gold in the contemporary solo category(D). Ashley was awarded the Prix D’Or trophy for both ballet and contemporary and was chosen for the “Outstanding Performer Award”. Haruka Okayasu from China received silver for both ballet and contemporary as well as the Prix d’Argent trophy for both ballet and contemporary. An impressive group of 26 young dancers from the Jin Bao Long Ballet School, performed their ensemble piece “Skating Waltz” in perfect unison resulting in 1st place for an ensemble in the novice ballet category(B). They also received the GDC Prix de l’Or trophy for the Category B (novice ballet) and the jury awarded them “Outstanding Coach” and “Outstanding Dance Organization.” The Goh Ballet Academy also received “Outstanding Dance Organization” as their students were awarded gold in 8 different sub categories.
Congratulations to all the dancers who competed in the 2018 Global Dance Challenge!
Next year’s Global Dance Challenge will be held in August 2019 in Vancouver Canada. Updates can be found on the website gdancechallenge.com
Tanja Phelps
