Youth America Grand Prix has responded to Dance Australia following several days of mounting discussion about its treatment of young dancers, competition practices and the influence it holds within pre-professional ballet.
The controversy began after Singapore-based dancewear company Cloud & Victory published accounts it said had been submitted by dancers and others within the ballet community. Several specifically identified YAGP and its founder and artistic director, Larissa Saveliev.
The accounts include allegations that a young dancer was told to lose weight in order to progress to Finals, that competition scores were improperly altered, and that race or nationality influenced decisions about advancement.
Dance Australia has not independently verified the individual allegations. Further accounts raising similar concerns have since appeared across Instagram, Facebook and Reddit, including from dancers and parents who say the experiences being described are not new.
That does not make every allegation established fact. It does mean the discussion extends beyond a single anonymous complaint.
YAGP responded promptly to questions from Dance Australia, while noting that the organisation had been given very limited time before publication and that matters of this seriousness warranted a longer conversation.
YAGP has strongly denied several of the claims.
One account published by Cloud & Victory came from a person who said they were 13 when a YAGP leader allegedly told their coach they needed to lose 10 pounds to progress to Finals. The contributor also alleged their scores were subsequently changed.
Asked whether YAGP staff, artistic leadership or adjudicators are permitted to recommend weight loss to a participant, the organisation told Dance Australia: “No, this is not the YAGP policy.”
YAGP’s response also draws a distinction between its own policy and the expectations of schools and companies using the organisation as an audition platform.
It said that when dancers seek information about what particular institutions are looking for, YAGP may relay those criteria to teachers or parents.
“When dancers come to YAGP requesting information about what the criteria are for various schools, it is part of YAGP's mission to relay this information to teachers or parents by way of providing the information as we understand it,” YAGP said.
The organisation did not specify what guidance applies when those criteria concern a dancer’s weight or body size, particularly where the dancer is a minor.
That question is central to the concerns now being raised. Whether a comment about weight originates with YAGP itself or is being relayed on behalf of a school may make an institutional distinction, but it is unlikely to make much difference to a young dancer hearing that their body could determine access to an opportunity.
YAGP also addressed questions about the collection of height and weight data.
The organisation said the fields were added for dancers seeking professional employment through the YAGP Job Fair because physical measurements form part of many dance companies’ application processes.
“We understand that not everyone feels comfortable sharing this information,” YAGP told Dance Australia, adding that the fields are “entirely optional” and that the information is “only accessible to Company Directors who specifically request it.”
The inclusion of a weight field had already prompted concern among dancers and parents earlier this year. YAGP’s published privacy notice, last updated in 2023, also lists height and weight among information collected from competition participants and scholarship applicants.
YAGP’s response explains how it says the information is used under the current system. It does not clarify how long that information has been collected, whether its use has changed over time, or what safeguards apply when minors are involved.
The scoring allegations have raised equally serious questions.
Accounts published by Cloud & Victory include claims that scores were altered improperly and, in one case, that paper score sheets contained erased or changed figures.
YAGP has confirmed that adjudicators may revise their own marks after seeing an entire category.
“Sometimes adjudicators adjust their scores after seeing an entire category of dancers to equalize their personal scoring system and make it consistent across the entire category,” the organisation said.
YAGP said scores are entered directly by each adjudicator and that judges hold a consilium before awards ceremonies to discuss and agree upon the winners.
A score changing after a performance can therefore occur legitimately within YAGP’s stated process.
But the allegation is not simply that scores can change. It is that they may have been changed improperly, raising questions about who has access to them and whether there is a record capable of establishing what happened.
Dance Australia asked what safeguards and audit processes apply. YAGP did not say whether anyone other than the adjudicator who issued a mark can alter it, or whether its electronic system records when a score was changed and by whom.
The organisation also clarified that its Finals are not determined solely by competition ranking.
“While at other competitions ‘Finals’ mean the best performing dancers, at YAGP, ‘Finals’ means the dancers most likely to receive scholarships for our presenting schools,” YAGP said.
According to the organisation, dancers can receive a Finals invitation by scoring 96 or higher on a classical variation or, in some cases, at the special request of a scholarship-presenting school.
YAGP also stressed the distinction between competition scoring and the opportunities offered by visiting institutions.
“The main purpose of the YAGP is scholarships, which are awarded independently of the scores,” the organisation said, explaining that decisions are based on each presenter’s assessment of a dancer’s potential and whether their school is the right fit for that dancer.
That discretion is part of the YAGP model. It is also part of why questions about transparency carry significance.
YAGP is not 'just' a competition. It connects young dancers with schools, directors and professional opportunities, giving the people within that network considerable influence over dancers who may still be children.
Several contributors to the current discussion have spoken about that imbalance directly, describing reluctance to criticise influential figures for fear of damaging future opportunities. Dance Australia does not suggest that YAGP has retaliated against anyone for speaking critically. The fear expressed by dancers and families, however, helps explain why many of the accounts are being shared anonymously.
Among the most serious allegations is a claim that dancers of a particular race were prevented from advancing because there were already too many dancers of that background. The contributor identified YAGP and attributed comments concerning Asian dancers to Saveliev.
Dance Australia has not independently established that those conversations occurred.
YAGP categorically denied that race, nationality or the number of dancers from a particular background could influence results, Finals invitations or scholarship decisions.
“No, absolutely not,” the organisation said, adding that it had been committed from its beginning to providing equal opportunities regardless of “economic, social, ethnic, racial, or geographic background”.
Further anonymous accounts raising similar concerns have since appeared online. They remain unverified, but their emergence has added to calls for greater scrutiny of how decisions are made within the organisation.
There have also been dancers and families speaking publicly about positive experiences with YAGP and Saveliev, including opportunities they credit to the organisation. Those accounts describe a markedly different experience of YAGP, but do not resolve the specific allegations now being made by others.
Asked for its broader response to the concerns circulating online, YAGP did not announce an investigation or review.
Instead, it said that while individual concerns were “important and worth addressing”, the dance community faced a larger challenge from the growing influence of social media and artificial intelligence, and would be better served working together to support the future of live performance rather than “attacking each other online”.
“So yes, let's keep the conversation going,” YAGP said, “but let's focus it on what we can do together to make sure our beloved art form of live dance and theater survives and thrives into the future.”
The dangers of trial by social media are real. Serious allegations involving identifiable people should be tested carefully rather than accepted simply because they are widely shared.
But describing the controversy primarily as an online attack risks overlooking what prompted it: dancers and families describing experiences they say caused harm within an organisation with substantial influence over young people.
YAGP has stated that recommending weight loss is not its policy. It has explained the current purpose of its height and weight fields, confirmed that adjudicators may revise their own scores, outlined the discretion involved in Finals invitations and categorically denied that race or nationality influences its decisions.
It has not said whether it intends to investigate the individual accounts now being made.
Nor has it explained what independent avenue is available to a dancer or parent wishing to raise concerns involving senior leadership, what safeguards govern the communication of body-related criteria to minors, or whether its scoring system maintains a complete audit history capable of resolving allegations about altered marks.
Those questions are particularly important because YAGP works extensively with children and young people at a formative point in their training.
Dancer wellbeing and child safeguarding cannot be separated from questions of training, opportunity or artistic development. When young dancers say they have been harmed, felt pressured about their bodies or felt unable to speak about their experiences, those concerns must be heard and examined seriously.
The allegations themselves must still be tested and corroborated where possible. YAGP is entitled to respond to them, and its denials are an important part of that reporting.
But young dancers should not have to prove an entire institutional case before the dance community is willing to listen.
What happens next should depend less on the volume of the argument online and more on whether dancers are given credible avenues to be heard, whether specific claims can be tested against records and witnesses, and whether the systems surrounding an organisation of YAGP’s influence provide the transparency and safeguarding young people are entitled to expect.
-Olivia Weeks