Since 1994, Starbound National Talent Competition has put a give attention to the individuals fairly than the competitors. And as a former dance instructor herself, Starbound founder and president Sandra Coyte continues to be striving to do exactly that. “I got here into this trade eager to do various things that may profit the dance studios,” Coyte says.
Now in its thirty third season, the mission to profit and assist dance studios stays robust. “On the finish of the day, our primary purpose is to placed on a great present, a enjoyable present, a secure present, a present that provides dancers the chance to specific themselves and have a good time performing,” says Ariella Latino, Starbound’s chief working officer.
As competitors season continues, Starbound’s administrators share recommendations on how dancers, lecturers, and studios can put together for the competitors stage, each at Regionals and Nationals.
Starbound’s High Ideas for Competing
One factor Coyte will all the time maintain agency on is the significance of specializing in method, each on the stage and within the classroom. “I want to see individuals return to the barre and return to discovering their heart,” Coyte says. “And I’m a robust believer that these issues carry you thru the opposite genres of dance.”
She particularly advises persevering with constant technical coaching exterior the routines you’re engaged on, and never sacrificing common method courses for competitors rehearsals. She says this is not going to solely strengthen the technical components of your routines but additionally prepare your physique and thoughts to choose up choreography extra simply and higher put together you for future situations, equivalent to auditions.
“It’s not nearly choreography,” she says, “it’s additionally about what’s going to get you to execute that choreography the proper manner.”
Persevering with that schooling exterior of the classroom, Starbound director and VIP-client liaison Robbie Mulrey encourages dancers to deal with competitions as studying experiences and to concentrate to what they’ll study from different dancers all through the competitors weekend.
“It’s not all the time about successful,” he says. “Every thing’s a win, proper?”
For Nationals particularly, Coyte recommends taking clear, well-rehearsed routines your studio has carried out all through the season, fairly than making an attempt to carry new choreography. “Once you’re snug with the choreography, when you’ll be able to really say one thing when you’re dancing, you’ll carry out it at a spectacular price since you’re not fascinated about it a lot,” she says.
Most significantly, Mulrey says to not go up the chance to fulfill new buddies and make connections with different dancers, and cherish the camaraderie together with your crew. “These are reminiscences which are going to form your life,” he says. “And 10 years from now you’re going to be like, ‘Keep in mind that Nationals, after we had the time of our lives and we did this?’ These are moments which are going to final.”
The New Studio Award
This yr, Starbound is introducing its Studio Distinction and Achievement Award. This honor is given out at each Regional and Nationwide competitors and acknowledges a dance studio that demonstrates a dedication to technical coaching, artistic development, and constructive mentorship by constant management, integrity, and keenness for dance. Recipients obtain an honoree plaque, in addition to the chance to be within the operating to attend a particular VIP journey with the Starbound crew.
“There are such a lot of other ways of reaching this award,” Mulrey says. “It could possibly be the whole lot from crew spirit within the again to sportsmanship within the entrance, cheering the opposite groups on, method, leisure, years in enterprise.”
Latino says the crew actually needed to create an award particular to Starbound, and each she and Coyte hope it offers studios one other factor to look ahead to and attempt to earn.
Altering Lives By the Dancers Care Basis
Giving again is a typical theme with Starbound. The Dancers Care Foundation, based in 2002 by Coyte, has raised and donated practically $3 million towards most cancers analysis.
Starbound fundraises a number of methods by Dancers Care, together with the Dancers Care Angel Program, through which volunteers from the viewers flow into across the competitors venue with buckets to gather donations. The cash raised goes on to dancers beneath 30 who’re battling most cancers to assist them with medical payments and associated private wants.
For Coyte, the affect is essentially the most rewarding half. “In life, if you may make a distinction and you’ve got the flexibility to make the distinction, why not make it?” she says.
The Starbound Household
Starbound strives to offer a dance competitors house that seems like a household. And that’s one thing each Latino and Mulrey love most in regards to the ambiance Coyte has created.
“It doesn’t matter what’s happening—900 acts, a thousand acts, three-day present, five-day Nationwide, seven-day Nationwide—I do know every person who walks by that door,” Mulrey says. “What we attempt to give [the dancers] at Starbound as an entire is a sense of confidence, a sense of household, of sportsmanship, of supporting them, getting them out onstage, ensuring that we’re reassuring them that it’s about having enjoyable and about doing all your greatest.”
Take a look at Starbound’s 2025–26 tour schedule, and learn more about how one can be part of America’s largest dance competitors.
