Junior Payton Kline has recently pirouetted her way into many different opportunities centered around her most prominent passion: ballet.

On Jan. 30, she received some personal validation as she placed significantly highly in the Las Vegas regionals of the world’s largest international student dance competition, the Youth America Grand Prix.

“I just recently competed in the biggest [student] competition worldwide; it’s about 5000 people and I got top 24 in regionals,” Kline says.

After achieving success in the competition, she set out in hopes of finding the perfect summer program to become involved in this year. Since she was 12, she has participated in programs over her summers frequently so she is familiar with the process.

She has auditioned for multiple programs recently; one of which was for a six-week-long summer intensive at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in Pennsylvania. After performing her audition for this intensive on Feb. 8, she was awarded a scholarship to go toward the price of tuition.

“Basically I [would] be dancing about eight hours a day, six days a week, and we [would] start at about eight in the morning and end pretty late,” Kline shares.

At this summer intensive, students not only learn more about ballet but they also take classes pertaining to subjects such as jazz, modern, and even choreography. The program is designed to help them increase their dancing skills and broaden their knowledge base. Under the scholarship, students stay in dormitories and meals are planned out.

“It’s really fun, it’s not bad; they take care of everything for you,” Kline adds.

In preparation for the auditions, she has not had to alter her usual, vigorous dancing schedule too much.

“I dance about six or seven days a week in general so it wasn’t too much extra preparation, just because the normal amount I do is a lot,” Kline explains.

This type of lengthy, nearly daily training has become natural for her because of her substantial past involving ballet. She has been dancing since her early years, and honing her skills since her childhood.

“I started dancing when I was three but I’ve been seriously doing ballet since I was about nine years old,” Kline says.

In addition to the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre summer intensive, she has also auditioned for programs at the Milwaukee Ballet School and Ballet Arizona.

Kline is awaiting the results of her auditions to see the scholarships she has been granted. In the coming weeks, she will be examining her options to choose the best place to spend the summer.