The dance level was as high as that of some of the most senior males at this event. John Meehan, International Jury chair, stated that “those of us who were on recent competitions’ jurys discovered that the level here was much higher than many, many recent competitions.” It’s very high.” The 10 jurors spent two hours whittling down the field of 92 contestants from 17 countries to make it to 44 semi-finalists. The results were posted at Millsaps College around midnight on Thursday. The semi-finalists will perform contemporary ballet selections during three sessions at Thalia Mara Hall, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Sunday. In 1982, the IBC, a quadrennial Jackson ballet event, was approved by Congress as the official U.S. international competition for ballet. The IBC is a competition where dancers from all over the globe compete for the medals, cash awards and scholarships. Tickets can still be purchased at usaibc.tix.com or at the Thalia Mara hall IBC box office. The numbers/nations breakdown for Round II shows that the USA has 20 dancers, Japan has 9 and Republic of Korea, 4, while China has 2; Cuba has 2; Mongolia has 1; Great Britain 1; Canada 1; Cuba 1; Armenia is 1. Semi-finalists include 11 senior males, 9 senior females, 9 junior males and 15 junior women. Seniors range in age from 19 to 28 years, while juniors are between 14 and 18 years. The strongest category was the junior female group, which was also the largest at the beginning. Jurors were impressed by their potential. Meehan said, “I loved the quality and talent of the senior females. I thought there were many who were exceptional.” “We looked at all the people who rose to the top, and it was strong in all four of those areas. That is very gratifying,” Meehan says. Many semi-finalists received rave reviews in crowd roars this week at Thalia Mara Hall. These included: Chinese dancers Yunting Qui, Sicong Wu and Joseph Phillips from the United States, whose haunting “Giselle” pas de deux was reminiscent the 2002 Chinese duo that took silver and gold in 2002. South Koreans Soobin Lee (and Sangmin Lee) performed a “Don Quixote”, pas de deux, which was filled with sparks and hot connection. The complete list of winners can be downloaded here. Meehan stated that jurors evaluate dancers using a 1-10 scale. This year, they used half-marks to help with evaluations. Judges evaluate dancers on technique and artistry. There is no automatic deduction for a dancer who falls onstage. Meehan stated, “We’ve all been dancing, and many of our dancers have fallen, if not all.” “Hands up, who has fallen on stage?” The hands of fellow jurors slid back. “OK, so that’s all we have. “Honestly, I don’t think that takes away marks, except that it’s a technical flaw that’s responsible, which we can see. Trinidad Vives, Spain, acknowledged that it’s difficult to score artistic talent; charisma and natural presence count. There are 10 jurors. Some dancers will be more appealing to you than others. … It is important that they have a presence and that they show the art form. They also need to understand the role they are performing so that quality can be improved. However, a cutoff is required to ensure that dancers have enough time to prepare for the next competition round. He predicted that between 28-30 dancers would advance to the finalist round on June 19-21. “Based on what I’ve seen, it’s going be an incredible last three days.”_x000D