One of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s newest corps members, Miko Fogarty, already has a legion of fans. She won hearts as a spunky 12-year-old in the award-winning film First Position, about the 2011 Youth America Grand Prix. And she’s set to generate more buzz for ballet as a short film about her is in the running for a prestigious Webby award.
The London-born Fogarty is part English, part Japanese and part Swiss. She trained in the San Francisco Bay Area, then at the Indiana Ballet Conservatory, and the Jinushi Ballet School in Japan. Her numerous awards include the gold medal at the Moscow International Ballet Competition in 2013, silver and bronze awards at Varna, and a Prix de Lausanne Award in 2013.
In the recent film by Abhi Singh for the Northern California public broadcaster KQED, Fogarty blithely tackles the ‘Esmeralda’ variation on the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown, and demolishes the infernal ‘Corsaire’ fouettés in the rehearsal studio. She speaks disarmingly about not having the ideal physique for ballet, and about being of mixed race in a profession whose standards have long been defined by a specific Caucasian body type. She shares her excitement at a special time in her life, on the threshold of a professional career, preparing to leave for England.
Launched in 1996 in San Francisco and now held in New York City, the Webby Awards received nearly 13,000 entries from 65 countries this year. Winners are selected both by members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) as well as by the voting public.
Besides helping to rocket online films and videos to the pinnacles of fame, the Webbys are celebrated for their mandated five-word acceptance speeches.
There are only four days of voting left. So if you’d like to attract a wider audience to ballet, click here and vote now to secure a Webby award for ‘A Bay Area Ballerina Comes of Age.’
