Japanese Boy, 12, Wins 2nd Place in N.Y. Ballet Contest

April 20, 2019

New York- Japan's Kai Sato won second place in the precompetitive division at this year's Youth America Grand Prix, a prestigious international competition in New York for young ballet dancers, its organizer said Friday.

The precompetitive division is for dancers aged between 9 and 11 as of Jan. 1. Sato, 12, a first-year junior high school student in the city of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, started practicing ballet when he was 9.

"I want to be a ballet dancer who can play any roles and entertain audiences," he told reporters.

Among other Japanese dancers, a group of four women aged 15-20 from the western prefectures of Hyogo and Okayama came in third in the ensemble division.

The YAGP provides promising competitors with opportunities to learn at ballet schools around the world as scholarship students. Participants in the competition must be aged between 9 and 19. Jiji Press