Aspiring talent takes bows in ‘First Position’

The judges who appear briefly in Bess Kargman’s deeply moving documentary, “First Position,” are engaged in making career-defining decisions about hundreds of aspiring dancers, ages 8 through 19, who compete for much-coveted scholarships and jobs in the annual Youth America Grand Prix. For this contest, a sort of Olympics of classical ballet, they come prepared with a list of essential assets necessary for a ballet career.

The requirements: a beautiful body; excellent training; a visible passion to dance; a strong personality, and that most elusive of all, “the it factor.” Also helpful: supportive parents able to make long-term geographic and financial sacrifices; insightful coaches; an ability to harness nerves and overcome injuries, and a resilient ego that can deal with disappointment and stress.

Kargman’s straightforward but revealingly sharpeyed documentary focuses on the challenges facing six of the competitors from the United States and abroad. It follows them as they move through their rigorous Sundance Selects presents a film directed by Bess Kargman. No MPAA rating. Running time: 94 minutes. Opening Friday at Landmark Century. training, perform in the semifinals and then go on to dance in the high-stakes finals in New York.

While no one would mistake “First Position” for a work of genius comparable to Wim Wenders’ recent “Pina,” or, at the other end of the spectrum, a vampirelike melodrama like Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” this is an intensely insightful and realistic look at what’s involved in trying to forge a ballet career. One thing is given: Dance demands grueling work and intense discipline from a young age. Dancers are, by their nature, a different breed, and the young artists seen here are already winningly individualistic. It’s easy to fall in love with them for reasons well beyond their talent and grit.

Joan Sebastian Zamora is an impossibly handsome 16-year-old of immense maturity and inner calm, with all the makings of a “danseur noble.” He has moved to New York to study ballet, leaving behind his proud, loving but financially strapped family in Cali, Colombia. You feel the pressure on him to succeed, but his mix of playfulness and persistence are captured in lovely moments that find him dancing on a subway platform during his commute from his Queens apartment and reveling in a family homecoming.

Michaela Deprince, 14, was born in Sierra Leone amid all the horrors of the civil war there, but she and her sister were adopted by a couple from New Jersey. Michaela is driven, but she knows the odds are stacked against her because blacks have an exceptionally hard time in the ballet world. Nevertheless, she is a power- house, and her determination to succeed is thrilling.

Miko Fogarty, 12, and her altogether precious brother, Jules, 10, come from a wellto-do family based in California. Miko is a charismatic empress made for dance. Jules (my pint-sized hero) puts up with the ballet regimen for just so long. Then he calls it quits — a decision that I wanted to applaud.

Then there are Aran Bell, 11, a prodigiously gifted but stoic boy with an amazing work ethic, and Gaya Bommer Yemini, 11, the tiny Israeli beauty whose “modern ballet” performance in a piece called “Wild Horses” is a knockout.

A brief epilogue captures the dancers’ post-competition fortunes. You can only cheer for all of them.