Just like everybody else, dancers have their dreams.

Whether it be to dance in the corps de ballet of some great international company or to push the envelope of theater in an avant garde modern dance company, all dancers at some time or another must imagine themselves at the heart of where it all comes together in the world of dance.

One of the foremost places where a dancer’s dreams come to fruition is New York City.

In Manhattan, there resides some of the greatest dance companies in the world, including the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, the Paul Taylor Dance Company and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Two local young women, trained at Island Dance and the Whidbey Island Dance Theatre, have won their place in that pulsing heart of American dance.

Jachen Mackner, 17, and Sayaka Yokota, 16, have been selected to attend the Alvin Ailey Summer Intensive Program in the age 16 to 25 professional division.

The girls auditioned in Seattle this past February and will take up residence in Manhattan for six weeks starting next week.

This year, the Alvin Ailey camp traveled to 15 cities in the U.S. where it auditioned 1,300 professional-division students, and 350 junior- division students. Mackner and Yokota were two of

500 professional-division students who were accepted for the summer intensive program.

Juliana Nolen, 14, a company member of Whidbey Island Dance Theatre, also won a spot in the junior-division category at Alvin Ailey, but is unable to attend due to lack of funding. Nolen will also have to forego a choreography workshop in Bellevue, where she was accepted.

Seven other dancers from Whidbey Island Dance Theatre were also accepted at summer dance intensives throughout the country.

Going off to New York City is pretty heady stuff for a teenager, and it was made even sweeter for Mackner after she earned scholarships to help cover the costs.

Mackner was recently awarded the Barbara Hatch LeBert Modern Dance Endowment through Whidbey Island Center for the Arts.

Mackner was also awarded a second scholarship by the Whidbey Island Dance Theatre.

She said she will use both awards to offset the cost of tuition for the summer program.

As a principal dancer with Whidbey Island Dance Theatre, Mackner garners praise from her teachers for the beauty she lends to the company.

“Her beautiful body and long legs, amazing range of motion, exceptional fluidity, complete immersion in her performances and absolute humility set her apart among other dancers,” said Susan Sandri, co-artistic director of the company.

“Jachen was just honored as one of the top three modern dancers in the Pacific Region of Regional Dance America, which has 24 juried dance companies from the 12 western states,” Sandri added.

Mackner is going into her senior year at South Whidbey High School.

She has studied at Island Dance in Clinton for the past five years, taking classes in modern dance, ballet, lyrical dance, jazz and hip hop. Mackner is now a principal (highest rank) dancer with Whidbey Island Dance Theatre in its modern-dance division.

She was featured in a lead role in Aaron Cash’s “The Reckoning” in Provo, Utah and at the Whidbey Island Dance Theatre’s Dance and Choreography Showcase in April.

Like Mackner, Yokota, too, has an affinity for modern dance and has wowed local audiences with her athletic grace onstage.

Local audiences may remember her in leading roles in Whidbey Island Dance Theatre’s “The Nutcracker,” in which she danced such roles as the Doll, a demi-soloist Snowflake and Flower.

Sandri recalled the first time she saw Yokota.

“She was 10 and came in for a Nutcracker audition for the part of a soldier. Her talent was obvious, and I couldn’t watch anyone else in the room,” Sandri said.

Sandri said Yokota skyrocketed up the ladder and became a principal dancer at the company in both ballet and modern.

She gave a memorable performance as Pandora in Sandri’s “The Sacred Feminine,” among other modern dances and, like Mackner this year, was honored in 2007 as one of the top dancers of the company at a national dance festival in Pittsburgh, Pa.

After taking a two-year hiatus, Yokota, who will be a junior at South Whidbey High School, plans to return to the company this year, and Sandri said she will be thrilled to have her back.

“Sayaka is one of those versatile dancers who can do everything,” Sandri said.

“She’s an amazing turner and leaper. She’s an explosive dancer with a lot of attack and confidence. When she’s onstage she’s a force to be reckoned with.”

Both of these young women said they were nervous going into the audition for the Alvin Ailey school, but made it easily through the first cut.

They were both called back after the ballet segment.

“I’m always tense when it comes to a ballet audition,” Yokota said.

“But they broke us up into smaller groups and we learned the combinations really quickly.”

Mackner, who doesn’t consider herself the strongest ballerina, said her training came through for her in the end.

“I felt pretty strong, though there were some pretty good ballerinas there,” Mackner said.

After running the candidates through their ballet paces, the girls moved on to other groups for a Horton technique-based audition.

Lester Horton was an American choreographer and dance teacher who mentored Alvin Ailey at the start of Ailey’s career. Ailey would eventually become a dancer in Horton’s company. When Horton died, it was Ailey who stepped forward to become the artistic director of the Horton Dance Company, eventually forming his own.

The island girls passed the modern test with flying colors, and were happy to hear they were accepted into the program the same day as the audition.

Considering the emphasis that the Alvin Ailey School places on modern dance, it was no surprise that Mackner and Yokota chose this audition, and for six weeks this summer these dancers will eat, drink and sleep modern dance (based on the teachings of Horton along with those of his contemporary, Martha Graham), with a few other styles thrown in for good measure.

The not-for-the-faint-of-heart schedule of classes includes ballet, jazz, hip hop, Afro-Caribbean, tap, barre á terre (alignment exercises at the ballet barre and on the floor), body conditioning, yoga and West African dance.

Living nearby — Mackner in the dance-school dormitory and Yokota in a women’s residency a few subway stops away — the girls will go to the Joan Weill Center for Dance, located at West 55th Street, where the Alvin Ailey dance school is located.

Although they will be busy dancing most of the time, Mackner and Yokota know that the six weeks they spend in the heart of a dancer’s dream in New York will be an experience of a lifetime.

“It’s very exciting, and I can’t wait to be in New York,” Mackner said.