HOT NUMBERS CAP DANCE ALLIANCE SESSION.

New York City Dance Alliance's closing night gala topped off a five-day marathon of workshops and preliminary competitions. Representatives from over a hundred studios from the United States and Canada attended the convention, held July 24 at Manhattan's famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

NYCDA organizes regional and national competitions and offers workshops and seminars to prepare aspiring young dancers for professional careers. At the end of this session, the ballroom overflowed with 1,300 parents, teachers, students and friends, as budding young dancers exhibited heaps of talent and professionalism. Joe Lanteri, NYCDA's founder and director, emceed the evening, which featured four hours of children's dancing interspersed with numbers from Saturday Night Fever, Swing and The Music Man, performed by the Broadway casts. Twelve-year-old Music Man cast member Travis Wall, who won the Junior National Outstanding Dancer Scholarship Award last year, was among the performers.

Both the soloists and groups in each level performed numbers characterized by impressive ingenuity and eclecticism, showing that kids today can switch from modern to jazz to ballet techniques in a split second. Dance Magazine sponsored the National Critics' Choice Awards, and Capezio/Ballet Makers, IAM.com & Marcea Activewear sponsored the National Outstanding Dancer Scholarship Awards. For a listing of winners, see www.nycdance.com.

The audience cheered wildly for every event, but two soloists elicited standing ovations. One was Manuel Herrera, a 16-year-old from North Carolina, who danced the variation and coda from the Don Quixote pas de deux. Sheer willpower seemed to propel him through the bravura series of leaps, turns and beats. The other ovation was for 15-year-old Danny Tidwell from Virginia Beach, who danced with a beautifully natural movement quality, breathtaking control and emotional openness.