Since 1994, Starbound Nationwide Expertise Competitors has put a concentrate on the folks moderately than the competitors. And as a former dance trainer herself, Starbound founder and president Sandra Coyte remains to be striving to do exactly that. “I got here into this trade eager to do various things that will profit the dance studios,” Coyte says.
Now in its thirty third season, the mission to learn and assist dance studios stays robust. “On the finish of the day, our primary purpose is to placed on present, a enjoyable present, a secure present, a present that provides dancers the chance to precise 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, academics, and studios can put together for the competitors stage, each at Regionals and Nationals.
Starbound’s Prime Ideas for Competing
One factor Coyte will at all times maintain agency on is the significance of specializing in method, each on the stage and within the classroom. “I wish to see folks 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 outdoors the routines you might be engaged on, and never sacrificing common method courses for competitors rehearsals. She says this won’t solely strengthen the technical parts of your routines but in addition 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 right method.”
Persevering with that training outdoors 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 will study from different dancers all through the competitors weekend.
“It’s not at all times about profitable,” he says. “The whole lot’s a win, proper?”
For Nationals particularly, Coyte recommends taking clear, well-rehearsed routines your studio has carried out all through the season, moderately than attempting to deliver new choreography. “If you’re comfy with the choreography, when you may truly say one thing whilst you’re dancing, you’ll carry out it at a spectacular charge since you’re not interested by it a lot,” she says.
Most significantly, Mulrey says to not cross up the chance to satisfy new mates 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, once we had the time of our lives and we did this?’ These are moments which are going to final.”
The New Studio Award
This 12 months, 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 progress, and constructive mentorship by means of constant management, integrity, and fervour for dance. Recipients obtain an honoree plaque, in addition to the chance to be within the working to attend a particular VIP journey with the Starbound crew.
“There are such a lot of alternative ways of attaining this award,” Mulrey says. “It may very well be all the pieces 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 sit up for and attempt to earn.
Altering Lives Via the Dancers Care Basis
Giving again is a typical theme with Starbound. The Dancers Care Basis, based in 2002 by Coyte, has raised and donated practically $3 million towards most cancers analysis.
Starbound fundraises a number of methods by means of Dancers Care, together with the Dancers Care Angel Program, during which volunteers from the viewers flow into across the competitors venue with buckets to gather donations. The cash raised goes on to dancers below 30 who’re battling most cancers to assist them with medical payments and associated private wants.
For Coyte, the influence is probably the most rewarding half. “In life, if you can also 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 concerning the environment 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 means of that door,” Mulrey says. “What we attempt to give [the dancers] at Starbound as a complete 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 finest.”
Take a look at Starbound’s 2025–26 tour schedule, and study extra about how one can be part of America’s largest dance competitors.
