Best Competitions?

[Garnby]

I was wondering what the best, most significant, or most well-known ballet (or, I mean, dance in general that includes ballet) competitions that allow adults?  I am also not referring to 18-25;  I mean adults of all ages.
Have you participated? If so, what was your experience like?
Do they have categories for different ability levels?

[Grandad dancer]

I confess I have never heard of an adult ballet competition or met anyone who thinks of ballet as a competitive sport. Is this an American thing? I am UK based. 

[Garnby]

It’s popular worldwide, but I think many people are more into contemporary and jazz and acro even though ballet is included and encouraged.  However, it’s popular with young girls and teens...the highest cut off age is around 25 at the latest for most competitions that are a big deal.  As a 30 year old who is just starting back from a 10 year hiatus and will probably be 32 or 33 by the time I feel confident to enter, I was hoping there were some nice competitions that allowed older contestants that I am unaware of.

[Fraildove]

Hi Granby,

most of the high level competitions that I’m familiar with do have an age limit of 25 or 26, but attract dancers of that age that are already professional, often times even at a soloist level. Those competitions would be like International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Varna, Moscow, and Helsinki. Even for the junior level the dancers are extremely accomplished. You can find video on YouTube of these competitions to see the level of the dancers in the Senior Devision. YAGP has an age limit of 19 and is for dancers who have never had a professional contract. If you are talking about general dance competitions that have regionals in many, many cities, the kind like the ones shown on dance moms, I’m not sure the age limit but I do know that there is no level requirement to enter these and they do have a ‘ballet catagory’. I put that in parentheses because it generally isn’t ballet that I would recognize with the exception of a handful. Would you give some examples of the competitions you have been looking at? 

[Garnby]

I'm honestly not experienced with competitions, so I would say that I don't know what I'm talking about exactly. LOL  I wanted to compete when I was younger before my long for-health-reasons hiatus, but neither parents nor money even when I was old enough to decide on my own would permit.  I want to still experience this in the near future.  Learning about competitions and what options are available was kind of part of the purpose of this thread.  

From your description, the ones I've found would be classified as smaller regionals.  I am aware of the more high level competitions like YAGP, so I made this topic to find out if there is anything like that that allow older competitors, as I haven't had much luck looking.

Anyway, the ones I came across that I jotted down are Groove, ShowBiz Talent, Platinum Performing Arts, and Jump.  Nothing specifically ballet, and I have been a bit busy so I haven't put a whole lot of time into this search (planning to research more as time permits). I would love to see a ballet oriented competition that allows older dancers if such a competition exists.