Ask any teacher who brings dancers to Starbound National Talent Competition and they’ll probably tell you a story about how one time, the event staff helped their student calm down before heading onstage. Or maybe it’ll be about how there was a director who remembered a dancer’s name even several years later, or just that somebody answered their urgent email late in the evening.
“The best thing about Starbound is really, truly, that they don’t cater to the studio owners,” says Paloma Limas, the owner of the McAllen, TX–based studio Paloma Limas Company. “They don’t cater to the parents. They really focus on the kids. And the real reason we open studios is for the kids.”
This design is the heart and soul of Starbound: CEO Sandra Coyte founded the competition in 1994 after more than a decade of being a studio owner herself, having experienced firsthand what it’s like to bring dancers to competitions where the students feel lost and overwhelmed, and the teachers are stretched thin with meager resources. “I just felt the industry needed some things, and Starbound brought them,” says Coyte.
Three decades on, her mission remains the same: High-quality judging and thorough attention to customers are the hallmark of the more than 50 regional and five national competitions that Starbound puts on each year. Starbound is now America’s largest dance competition, and it boasts a return rate steadily above 90 percent.
“We pride ourselves on customer service,” says Starbound director Robert Mulrey. He speaks passionately about the Starbound family: “When you walk in the door, the first thing you see is one of the directors’ faces. We ask: Any changes? Any concerns? How can we fix them? We try to give you everything when you first come in, so then you can just enjoy the weekend and enjoy the kids and enjoy the show.”
The result? Calmer teachers, happier students, better performances. “If I have a student that’s never competed at Starbound before, the staff will talk to them as if they’ve known them their whole life,” Limas says. “It makes the students feel confident and comfortable. If we’re backstage, the students can go up to them and be like, ‘What’s my number? What is this?’ Or even if they feel nervous, the staff will go and calm their nerves down.”
Starbound dancers compete in four levels: Intermediate, Competitive, Elite, and the newly added Mini Petite, which Coyte and her team created to give dancers ages 6 and under the opportunity to shine alongside their own skill levels. “Some 5-year-olds are amazing, but it’s really difficult for them to compete with an 8-year-old,” Coyte says. The Mini Petite addition is one example of Starbound’s commitment to helping students feel safe, comfortable, and excited to be onstage.
“It means so much to my students, coming from a small city in Texas, being able to compete with dancers who really have mainstream training,” Limas says. “It gives us an opportunity to go out there and feel comfortable with what we’re presenting, knowing that regardless of anything, we’ll have a fair fight.” Limas brings between 25 and 35 students to Starbound Regionals and Nationals each year. “As soon as we walk in, we feel 100 percent comfortable to walk up to them and really dig into what is best for our kids,” Lima says. “It gives it more of a home feeling, rather than a competitive feeling.”
This attentiveness begins long before competition day, too. “We’re available until 6, 7 at night every day of the week,” says Mulrey. “There are nights that I’ll come home from teaching myself and I’ll answer questions or shoot a few emails back. I know we all have crazy schedules. We will answer you 24/7.”
Through Starbound’s Elite teacher program, studio owners can also access resources like free hotel rooms and merch discounts. Plus, the competition’s early-registration perks allow for a 20 percent rebate on the cost of National Finals. “I was the teacher who had to take off my classes on a Saturday and pay a substitute so that I could go to competitions,” Coyte says of her days as a studio owner. “I know it’s a lot.”
The rebate program was the first of its kind when Coyte started it; now, programs like it have become the industry standard. “I’m always very honored that that happened,” Coyte says. Today, she continues to use her experience as a teacher in concert with new feedback to shape the competition for modern-day needs. Limas says she sees this happening in real time. “I have actually been able to talk to them and say ‘I saw this was going on,’ and they get on it,” she says. “Not just in a couple days—they will fix it right at that moment.”
Starbound’s implementation of recorded judging feedback, critiques emailed directly to dancers, its January 1 age cutoff, and solo length are some examples of features that Coyte put into practice after listening to her customers’ concerns. “In a world where everything’s changing so fast, I really love that Starbound is in the mix with everything that’s shifting, but they stick to their morals and they stick to their clients,” Limas says. “The clients always come first.”
As she looks toward the next 30 years, Coyte says she’s ready to take Starbound international, but not at the cost of customer service.“We are a competition—we’re not the only one, but they’re few and far between—that is run by a woman who was a dance teacher,” says Coyte. “When my customers come to a Starbound show, they’re getting someone who was just like them.”
To see Starbound National Talent Competition’s 2024–25 calendar, click here.
