Two Philadelphia dancers will be competing in ballet’s prestigious Prix de Lausanne

Carson Willey had not danced for a year.

He was just coming back to ballet after a long recovery from ankle surgery in the fall, when he taped an audition for the Prix de Lausanne, perhaps the world’s most prestigious ballet competition for young dancers. It will take place Jan. 28 to Feb. 4 in Switzerland.

“When I did my audition video for Prix, my foot was really hurting still,” said Willey, 17, of Pocatello, Idaho, who trains at Philadelphia’s Rock School for Dance Education.

“You have to do everything for the audition,” said his teacher, Peter Stark, president and director of the Rock. But aside from the audition video, “he wasn’t back to the full [ballet] class.”

Willey first came to Philadelphia for a summer when he was 11. Last year, he planned to stay for a full year to study at the Rock on a scholarship he had won at another ballet competition: the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP). After about a week, though, his ankle hurt too much. He returned home to Idaho to have an extra bone removed from his ankle.

“When he came back, we were working kind of slowly,” Stark said, “as soon as he got Prix, it was like turning the fire to high ... it really pushed him to get back into shape.”

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As proof that he’s ready, Willey competed Jan. 12-14 in YAGP’s Philadelphia regional semifinal. He was considering it a warm-up to Switzerland — and he won the whole thing (in ballet terms, the Senior Grand Prix). The Rock School won the outstanding school award, and the faculty of the School of Philadelphia Ballet won the outstanding teacher award.

Philadelphia Ballet’s Katie Cerny is also a 17-year-old ballet dancer in Philadelphia, and she was also accepted to compete in the Prix de Lausanne.

A Cary, N.C., native, Cerny had been studying at the John Cranko Shule, the ballet school of the Stuttgart Ballet, in Germany. Like Willey, she had won that scholarship through YAGP.

In the middle of last year, Cerny felt ready to move out of the classroom and onto the stage. A classmate from North Carolina, Sydney Dolan, first soloist at Philadelphia Ballet, encouraged her to audition for the company.

Davit Karapetyan, the director of the School of Philadelphia Ballet, who is coaching Cerny for the Prix, was a little hesitant when he received the video because it was midterm. “And then I saw the video and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s a lovely dancer.’ ”

He accepted her as a trainee and invited her to the second company (the top level of the school) this season.

Willey and Cerny are two of just 88 dancers worldwide who were selected to compete, and among only 17 from the United States.

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Karapetyan, who is from Armenia, was a Prix winner in 1999, and that launched his career at the Zurich Ballet and then San Francisco Ballet. He was also on the Prix jury in 2018.

Another Philadelphia connection is Shelly Power, the executive director of Philadelphia Ballet, who is a past CEO and artistic director of the Prix de Lausanne.

“I was freaking out,” Willey said, when he received his selection email. His mother was at home in Idaho then. “So I called my mom. And it was like 4 in the morning. She answered, because she was like, ‘OK, he must have got it.’ And then I can’t remember what I did.”

For Cerny, it was similar. She lives with roommates, but when she got the email, “I jumped up and down and called my mom.”

Then the work started. They had to prepare two variations: a classical and a contemporary. In Switzerland, they will take classes and refine their pieces, so they can be judged on the body of their work while they’re there. Their coaches are going but are not allowed to help during Prix hours.

Willey is preparing a variation from Sleeping Beauty for his classical.

“I thought [Sleeping Beauty] would be a challenge and would show off Carson’s strengths well,” Stark said. It also has to be a standard version. “So we’re having to look at key performances of Baryshnikov or Kimin Kim or Angel Corella.”

Cerny also chose Sleeping Beauty. Her classical pick is “Aurora’s Wedding.”

“I love turning,” she said. “That’s one of my favorite things to do. And I love port de bras, so really getting to use my upper body. I find that really fun.”

Both also chose the same contemporary variation: Do You Care?, a gender-neutral solo by American Ballet Theatre dancer Aleisha Walker, who won the Young Creation Award with this piece at the 2023 Prix. Walker will be coaching the dancers there this month.

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At the Prix, both hope to at least make it to the second round. And after the competition? Ideally scholarship offers or company contracts will follow.

“I would pick anything,” Willey said of potential schools and jobs. “But I know the Stuttgart is amazing, and I would love to go there. Or maybe ... everyone says ABT and [the Royal Ballet], but ABT and Royal.”

Cerny is already affiliated with a company, so it’s a little more awkward to say, but “hopefully something comes from Europe, but if not, I’m perfectly fine here.”

But if she were to dream?

“I really love English National.”

The Prix de Lausanne will be live streamed on its home page, Jan. 28 – Feb. 4, as well as on its Facebook page and YouTube channel. Replays will be available on its YouTube channel.