Mississippi hops to its toes

Among the world's ballet competitions today, all descendants of the first one, in Varna in 1964, Jackson's is known for its hometown flavor. The event sprang from a grass-roots effort to foster the art of dance in the state; in 1975 the Jackson Ballet Guild brought a well-known New York teacher, Thalia Mara, to Mississippi, where she founded the Magnolia State's first professional ballet company and school. To build an audience for dance, Mara wanted to host an international ballet competition, with the idea that the sports-loving public would be drawn to an Olympics-style event. Mara convinced political and business leaders in Jackson to fund the project, and persuaded her many contacts in the ballet world that the showcase should be held down South.

Since its 1979 première, the Jackson competition has given audiences early glimpses of future stars, including Jennifer Gelfand, who won a gold medal in 1986 and went on to dance leading roles at Boston Ballet until her retirement in 2003. Irina Dvorovenko (silver, 1990) and José Carreño (Grand Prix, 1990) are now stars at American Ballet Theatre. After winning a silver medal in 2002, Boston Ballet dancer Sarah Lamb made a leap up to the rank of first soloist at London's Royal Ballet, where 1994 Grand Prix winner Johan Kobborg is a principal.

This year 97 competitors, representing 23 countries, battled it out in the first round. About half of the competitors survived the first cut to dance in the second round, which begins Friday. Divided into junior and senior categories, competitors must prove their artistry, technical prowess, and musicality in both classical repertoire and contemporary pieces.

Over the decades, the Jackson competition has left its loyal helpers with some vivid memories. Retired high school Spanish teacher Babs King remembers a certain dancer from Japan, a sort of calamity Jane in a tutu, who forgot her tambourine for the first rehearsal and then lost her wallet. (King found the wallet but not her tambourine.) Through all the travails, a bond grew between the two. When the dancer was eliminated in one of the rounds, King recalls, "She cried, and I cried with her."

Elzena Johnson says she struck up a friendship with a Lithuanian ballerina during a previous competition, and the two corresponded for a while. "Her dancing was beautiful," she recalls. "Oh, it just flowed."

This year's event is especially precious to Ms. Johnson, a widow who became a nonagenarian after the last competition. "Last time I was crying, thinking that I wouldn't get to do this anymore," she says. "I'm so grateful to be alive to do this again."

Her job this year is to ride the trolley-like bus that shuttles competitors from their dorms to class and rehearsals.

A Senior Olympics swimmer who walks two miles five days a week, Johnson is in awe of the dancers' dedication. "I was looking at their feet and legs today," she says after the morning's first run. "They have big calluses on them. And one boy had calf muscles so big they looked like [the backs of] turtles. You can see how hard they work."

Phillip Macon recalls a backyard party where the Russian dancers first saw lightning bugs. "[The competition] is something that brings people and cultures closer together," says Mr. Macon, a medical-business consultant. "You spend some time together, you eat together, and you find out that, lo and behold, we're all human beings and we just might learn some things from each other – like what a firefly is."

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