In November of last year, Florence Township welcomed the Central NJ Ballet Theatre company’s newest location to the area.
The theater’s artistic director, Alisha Cardenas, is already establishing her place in the region as multiple students from the studio prepare to compete and/or participate in the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), the world’s largest non-profit international student ballet competition and scholarship program, open to dance students of all nationalities ages nine through 19.
The event is scheduled for March 1 through 3.
“The Youth America Grand Prix is one of the biggest and high level dance competitions in the world,” Cardenas said. “Every year we take our most promising students to compete and for a workshop opportunity in Philadelphia.”
Last year, Cardenas said that her student, Kennedy Wolfe (12 years old) of Wrightstown, placed in the top 12 for the precompetitive level. Cardenas noted that this year, Wolfe will compete in the junior level along with Kayla Miller Keister (13) of Hamilton and Mollie Ward (14) of Princeton.
Along with Wolfe and Ward, Cardenas said that her students, Caitlyn Yang (17) and Ashlynn Yang (15) of Heightstown, and Shriya Varma (18) of Bordentown, will be competing in the senior level.
Sophia Szabo (10) of Florence, will be both in the precompetitive level and the ensemble division with Wolfe.
“The CNJBT dancers train for months on top of hours of weekly technique classes in order to get to the opportunity to participate in YAGP,” Cardenas said.
