Madeleine Dance Emporio - Are you judging me?

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Are you judging me?

It is easy to see why so many people get hooked on dancing and competing. There is an air of energy, excitement and glamour that only DanceSport brings to an event. Like any other sport, couples are fiercely competitive, and a lot of time and effort goes into lessons, practice, preparation, costumes, grooming and of course – competing!

In general, highly qualified and experienced adjudicators have the difficult task of sorting all the competitors into the right places in a very short time. While the winners tend to always agree with the panel, others are sometimes left wondering where or why they didn’t quite make the placing they wanted.

Before blaming the adjudicators, the music, the floor, etc, it may be worthwhile to take a deep breath and remember the following:

The music is the same for every couple
The floor / environment is the same for every couple
Do you honestly deserve to be placed higher, based on your performance on the day?
If the answer to 3 is “Yes”, how do you know? Did you have time to watch all the other couples while you were dancing?
Are you sure you danced as well as you think you did? How do you know?

To be successful in any competition, it is important to know the rules and what the judging criteria is. The latter has been subject of many discussions, and many attempts have been made to formalise these criteria.

In a Dance Beat article “Open Professional Rhythm”, Corky Ballas (http://www.corky.com/bio.html) gives us an insight into some of the finer points that can influence where you place.


	1 - TECHNIQUE: Use of toes, ankles, knee action, hip line and action, shoulder line and action, neck line and action. 2 - POSTURE: Vertical alignment from head to toe maintained throughout all the rounds. 3 - TIMING: It's not just the timing of changing weight to music. It's the polyrhythms between the couple, if any even exist with the particular couple. It's the timing of lead, from floor through hip line, through arm. 4 - CHOREOGRAPHY: This is based on the choreography the couple executes; sometimes the choreography is too difficult for the level of the couple. The question you have to ask yourselves is, "Does the choreography we dance, look good on us?" Well, dancing never looks how it feels, and that is why we need a third eye. Sometimes we can feel so awesome, and look so crappy. 5 - CHARACTER: Is determined how the couple plays the role of each dance, are they taking on the role of the dance, or are they just themselves dancing to the music? Are they over using their faces, or are they under using their faces, or are they doing absolutely nothing with their faces. Some couples in this area dance as if their head is not even attached to their body. 6 - STAMINA: This is most evident the last 30 seconds of the dance, if the form is maintained in the body. Are the feet moving with resistance into the floor, how much endurance does the couple have to the last second of the dance? Does the couple maintain composure between the dances? 7 - FLOOR-CRAFT: This is how the couple together manoeuvre through the other couples to show off their style. 8 - USE OF TENSION: Change of tension is what makes dancing come alive! It is what makes one couple stand out and another couple just blend in. 9 - RELATIONSHIP: Relationship to each other, to the music, to the audience, to the space between each other. 10 - CONNECTION: This is evident by how the man moves his lady, and how in return the lady responds to her partner. The use of connection is through the eyes, shape of the body and finally the physical use of arms. 11 - SENSITIVITY: How aware the couple is of the sense of touch. 12 - SPATIAL AWARENESS: Defined as the awareness of space between each partner, between themselves and how the couple projects their energy on the floor. 13 - PRESENTATION: This is how the couple is groomed, hair, makeup, tan, lady's fingernails, toenails, and the costume appearance. It's always so distracting when earrings are flying off, hair coming undone, pieces of the costume shedding all over the floor, or flying off the dress. 14 - PHYSICAL CONDITION: Does the person look in shape? Sometimes too many trips to Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Baskin Robbins can interfere with the look of a Professional DanceSport Athlete. Let's face it, if you’re going to run with the BIG DOGS, you can't pee like a PUPPY. Take care of your craft; you only have so many years left in you anyway. 15 - WARMTH: Some couples have an inviting feeling, as is to say, "Welcome to our world". Others say, "Stay out of our world", others say, "What is our world, it's disorganized?" and others don't even have a clue what their body language is giving off.

Excerpt from Dance Beat Edition 0505. Article: "Open Professional Rhythm" by Corky Ballas.

Understanding your sport, the rules and just how the adjudicator marks are used to come up with the final result is always an advantage. This is why it is also advisable for competitors to familiarise themselves with the skating system, which is ultimately used to sort couples in order based on the marks the judges give.

As always, your coach is the best starting point.

Links & Resources

Link to IDSF Judging Criteria - www.idsf.net/edc/IDSF_DanceSport_Judging_System_Media.pdf

Link to IDSF New Judging Criteria – Shanghai 2009
http://www.dancebeatworld.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/0110-2-low.pdf

Skating System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skating_system
http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/skating/rules.html

DanceSport Australia
http://www.dancesport.org.au