A student of local dance studio Dance Innovations has been crowned Junior Mr. CanDance of North America.
Twelve-year-old Zachariah Kostersky of Yorkton won the title in Orlando, Florida this July after qualifying for Nationals at the Regina CanDance competition in the spring. In Regina, Kostersky won first place for solos in the tap and hip-hop categories and both first and third place overall in his age group.
Kostersky and his family then had to decide whether to make the long trip to Orlando, which would mean giving up most of the young dancer's summer.
"Usually at the end of May they can relax," says Tammy Kostersky, Zach's mother and director of Dance Innovations, "but he was in the studio every day practicing and taking extra classes. I knew he had a goal, and he was going to work hard to achieve it."
In all, four students of Dance Innovations qualified for Nationals and visited Florida: Zach, Lauren Denysek, Kyra Harris, and Zach's sister, Kaytia. All four worked hard to prepare, said the instructor, and represented Yorkton well.
The massive CanDance competition drew the top dancers from 11 Canadian cities and 10 American cities to Orlando. It was Zach's first competition outside of Canada."It was a pretty cool place, and a really cool dance competition," he says. "All the adjudicators were great, all the contestants were great."
During a full week of competition, Zach and the other contestants recorded video interviews, learned an opening number, and attended audition classes. Every portion of the week contributed to the final decision.
The actual talent presentation followed. Kostersky chose to perform his tap solo, which he had been refining over the last two years.
"He has a personality on the stage. He really presents and loves to dance," says Zach's mother. "And you can tell that when he's up there. No one can tell him to perform. He does it because he loves what he's doing."
The judges saw the same thing in his performance. Zach scored the highest in his division in all areas, earning him the top award.
The moment wasn't diminished at all by the announcer's mispronunciation of his name.
"She pronounced it as Kowalersky instead of Kostersky. I don't know where she got the 'L' from," laughs Zach, "but I felt very happy and quite proud."
Kostersky had already won 13 special awards on top of numerous first-place finishes in various competitions this season, but none of them were on the level of the North American title.
The dancer has been training in various styles-tap, jazz, ballet, modern, hip-hop-since he was three years old.
"I've been doing them for almost my whole life," he says.
There aren't many greater awards for a twelve-year-old dancer, but Kostersky has his sights set higher in the long term.
"My main goal is that after I graduate from high school, I'll go into So You Think You Can Dance. I want to get at least a better mark than the top 20. Maybe the top 10. Maybe win."
Tammy Kostersky gave special thanks to Zach's Dance Innovations teachers and drama teacher Carrie Pengilly.
