FOR BALLET’S YOUNG ARTISTS : AMERICAN DANCE COMPETITION DAWNS

Varna. Tokyo. Lausanne. Moscow. Jackson, Miss.--and now Los Angeles joins the ballet competition sweepstakes on another scale. From June 30 through July 5, about 100 young American dancers will gather at UCLA for the first Marguerite Amilita Hoffman National Ballet Competition. The event was announced Friday at a kickoff “Balletomane Ball” at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

On hand as honorees were Maria Tallchief and Edward Villella, who made their careers with the New York City Ballet and who now direct companies in Chicago and Miami, respectively. Former Bolshoi dancer Valentina Kozlova, currently on the City Ballet roster, joined them, along with Stanley Holden, whose local presence in the 20 years since he left the Royal Ballet is a beacon to international figures.

They all spoke briefly after being introduced by Los Angeles businessman Barney Corbin, whose sponsorship makes the competition possible.

Corbin’s financial backing, which he plans to sustain throughout the subsequent events, comes as a tribute to his late mother, Marguerite Amilita Hoffman, a dancer in whose name he has established a ballet scholarship.

The upcoming competition, to which Corbin has donated “more than $100,000,” will have to be repeated for three consecutive years in order to qualify for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, according to Jonette Rettig, executive director of the Marguerite Amilita Hoffman Foundation.

“I wanted to invite the most authentic American I could think of,” said Corbin, referring to Tallchief and her Indian heritage.

“And who but Mr. America,” he joked, “fills the bill better than Villella? As for Kozlova, she chose the U.S. over the Soviet Union when she defected right here in Los Angeles (in 1979). So I think we’re honoring an interesting group.”

Tallchief, in particular, lauded Corbin, calling his generosity “incredible.”

“Bravo to an American competition,” she said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity and wonderful incentive.”

Kozlova, who spoke about her own experience in the past as a competition entrant, was enthusiastic for yet another reason.

“When I went through all this,” she said, “politics was involved.” She explained that the competitions were international and that the judges were not assessing talent alone but trying also to acknowledge the political blocs of the participating countries.

What is unique to this enterprise--besides its accepting only U.S. citizens--is its being limited to young, pre-professional dancers; few other competitions make the attempt to equalize the status of their participants.

One hundred dance students between ages 13 and 19 are signed up to compete for cash and scholarship prizes amounting to $165,000. After judges observe the candidates in technique classes, they proceed on July 4 to the Royce Hall stage, where each dancer will perform a two-minute variation.

From that exhibition, 20 finalists will be selected to perform the next day, with the winner announced just afterward. William Como, editor of Dancemagazine, will act as master of ceremonies.

The judges and instructors will include: Helgi Tomasson (San Francisco Ballet); Francia Russell (Pacific Northwest Ballet); Mary Day (Washington Ballet); Stanley Holden, Ted Kivitt, Marjorie Tallchief (Chicago City Ballet); Nancy Schaffenburg (Dance Theater of Harlem); Bruce Wells (Boston Ballet), and Margaret Hills (UCLA).