Joel Hathaway's powerful leap is worked into his ballet performance to a spirited number from

This is not your average small town talent show.

By ones and twos, young dancers from the lower Columbia region stretch, pose, twirl, and leap with their limbs and their hearts to translate music into visual emotion. They’ll present their original ballet, jazz and tap dances in the 23rd annual Young Choreographers’ Showcase for audiences in Astoria and Cannon Beach over the next two weekends.

With a big smile on her face throughout her performance, Sabrina Barbic performs her dance to “Wings.”All the young choreographers are members of Little Ballet Theatre and have studied for years with its director, Jeanne Peterson of Maddox Dance Studio. The youngest are 11 to 12 years old; most are still in middle school or high school. Only a handful are old enough to drive. But onstage, they’re as poised and focused as professionals.

Last Saturday was adjudication day for 27 participants as they performed their routines for a panel of local dance experts at Maddox Dance Studio in Warrenton. After each act, the dancers were evaluated on originality, style and technique, as well as costuming, music suitability and even their poise as they entered and exited the room.

Eleni Duret, left, and Victoria Moyer strike their final pose in their jazz routine to “Disco Hippie.””Remember to make eye contact with the judges,” coached Diana Morimoto, as the apprentice level dancers, the youngest group, costumed in a rainbow of sequins and chiffon, gathered around her in the warmup studio minutes before the day’s schedule began. Morimoto has headed the YCS Committee for several years, coordinating the applications, music, judges, rehearsals and the partnership between Little Ballet Theatre and Clatsop Community College’s Arts & Ideas Program.

First-time participants Courtney Rudat and Haylee Barrick, both 12, said they have been working on their piece for the past few months, a light and graceful ballet to “Storms in Africa” by new age singer/composer Enya. Both wore matching white filmy dresses with sky-blue scarves draped around the neckline that flowed and trailed as they moved in rhythm across the open space.

The hardest part of choreographing their dance was getting together to practice, Rudat said. She lives in Knappa; Barrick is from Astoria. After they had finished the song, curtsied for the judges and swept back into the warmup studio, both were breathless from the rush of nerves and the excitement of having performed well.

“I think that’s the best I’ve done it so far,” Barrick gushed.

Performing their duet to “Chava Ballet Sequence” are junior level dancers Coreene Tussing, left, and Ramona Lane.All the dancers choose their music, create their costumes and choreograph their pieces without any help from their teachers, said Peterson, who sat quietly in a corner as each act performed, and watched for the first time as the impressive results of her tutelage unfolded on the dance floor.

Peterson was moved to create the showcase when one year’s roster of students seemed exceptionally creative. “It was an experiment,” she explained. “And it was a big success right away.”

For many years, the top scorers in each level won trophies, but the committee discontinued the awards process seven or eight years ago, Peterson said. “We didn’t want it to become a competition,” she explained. “It’s become a lot more popular since then.”

Sina Fastabend’s choreography takes flight to “Your Song.”Sina Fastabend, a freshman at Astoria High School who has danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the past two years of “The Nutcracker,” is a six-year veteran of the event. Fastabend chose the traditional look of a pale blue ballerina dress to perform her solo lyrical ballet to the dramatic “Your Song” from “Moulin Rouge.”

She and fellow senior LBT member Kaitlin Oja also choreographed a contemporary ballet to “Circle of Life” from “The Lion King.” Their dance evokes images of gazelles, cranes and other African animals, so the two bought brown unitards and embellished them with tan fabric they hand printed with leaf designs.

Keesha Roberts also took her costuming seriously. For her contemporary ballet duet with Josh Murry to the stirring theme from “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Roberts designed and fabricated an intricate white headpiece to top off her navy blue skirt and leotard, artfully ragged and perfectly accented by pointe shoes of what looked like distressed brown leather.

She and Murry carried pirate swords at their sides as they began their routine with the same intense energy as the music. Their movements portrayed a story stylized into leaps, turns and lifts, that exploded into a full-out sword fight sequence straight out of Hollywood.

Thomas Barbic also ran with the pirate theme. He wielded a small dagger in his solo ballet number and introduced vocal effects for the first time in Young Choreographers history.

Kanoe Wagner strikes a graceful pose in her classical piece.Judges Dottie Fields, Danene Lethin and Kristen Samuelson admired his gusto as he began his swashbuckling routine with rousing shouts of “Ha!” but found that two and a half minutes later, his energy and creativity had lagged.

“He just ran out of oomph there,” commented Fields, a former Broadway dancer and teacher, and the others agreed as they filled out their score sheets for Barbic.

“He can fix that,” Peterson responded with confidence. At the end of the adjudication round, she applauded Barbic and the rest of his level but exhorted them to keep practicing and keep improving for the showcase performances.

Peterson knows her dancers like family members – their strengths, their challenges, how far they’ve come and the heights they can achieve. She’s still amazed each year, though, at her students’ brilliantly original ideas and their attention to execution.

“There’s so much creativity in the kids,” Peterson said, beaming. “An exceptional amount.”