I was not intending to write about this quickie dance competition held in San Jose, California at the Doubletree Hotel……..a water gun spray distance from the airport in the middle of a concrete jungle of nondescript office buildings and busy streets with fast moving cars shooting through intersections at breakneck speeds.
So much was packed into this two-day event that was aggravated by an unexpected but welcomed 50% increase in entries that required me, in both days of the competition, to dance from morning into the night with no time to rest, no time to collect, and no time to release myself from the anxiety of preparation needed before the next act on stage of the competition floor. This was no burden to my dance teacher and pro-am dance partner, Yanna Samkova, but proved a difficult task for this senior citizen want-to-be ballroom dancer. To make matters even more difficult, very little was provided in extras to soften the burden of the weekend competition but in the end, it was an enjoyable and productive time for me, and an experience well worth attending. Of note, the professional show was an amazing display of dance perfection featuring the number 1, 2, and 3 dance couples in the world. Such a exhibition of perfection and fluidity and musicality and elegance was not entirely lost to the exhausted eyes of yours truly, but I admit that my lids were so heavy with fatigue that even the best dancers in the world would have trouble keeping them from collapsing.
What I really want to focus on is the judging. Let me give some background for those lacking knowledge of the process. These competitions fall under the rules and regulations of the National Dance Council of America (NDCA) and is World Dancesport Series approved. Categories not only are divided into age groups but also in categories of the specific dance steps that are chosen. It is not necessarily true but generally speaking, dance skills increase in competitions from bronze to silver to gold. Age categories span at least 10 years……in that regard, I fall into the B2 category which includes the ages from 61-70. In addition, most large competitions judge several categories of dance couples as separate events……male students with female dance instructors, female students with male instructors, and a spattering of amateur couples. This clearly makes sense; otherwise you would be comparing apples to oranges (as said eloquently by Geoffrey Fells). Overall it is harder for a male student leading a female instructor to compete against a male instructor leading a female student; when you do so successfully, you can feel proud!
The city lights competition was small enough that the organizer lumped the male and female students into the same competition heats….this was the first time for me as a competitor that I faced such a high level of competition. This I believe was done to avoid small and uncontested heats typical of a smallish competition, and to consolidate the number of heats and simplify the results and analysis. I had an opportunity for the first time to compete against as many as 7 other couples, many of whom were female students dancing with make instructors. So the following discussion reflects an opportunity to analyze the results of each individual heat and the scores from the judges from the perspective of this expanded pool of competitors.
While I had no real expectation about how I would fare other than badly, I was overall happy with my results. But the main point of this conversation is not about me, but rather about some observations that I made, which may enlighten the readers to some level of heightened understanding of the process of ballroom competition judging. Not wanting to bore you with too much of this expanded analysis, I will limit my discussion if that is humanly possible by this overly verbose blogger.
OK, here it goes. In the situation that you are scored first or last in any individual heat, your scores from the individual judges (there are generally 3-9 judges at any one time) would generally fall into a consistently high or respectively low ranking. But lets say that you came in 3rd, 4th or 5th in a field of 8. In that scenario, you could indeed receive individual judges scores that are consistent, and reflective of the final score. But is it possible that a 4th place final score represent an average of individual judges scores that span the ranking spectrum? The answer is yes…..there were indeed several heats in which I received a final ranking in the mid range of the group with at least one 1st or 2nd place ranking and one 7th or 8th place ranking. You might ask yourself; how could such divergent variations exist? And more importantly, who cares!!!!
The answer lies partially in common sense, and partially as a speculation. What we do know for a fact is that each of the judges chosen for these events represents a nationally and or internationally recognized and accomplished dancer who has ended their competitive ballroom dancing career and has transitioned into a new world of teaching, coaching, and dance competition judging. There are NO amateur judges; these folks are heavy weights and generally have had decades of professional ballroom dance experience under their belts to call upon. How can one judge score me first and another one score me last?
Now, assuming that judges are unbiased and focused on the task at hand, and that they are using consistent criteria to score your performance, the obvious answer to the question of judging variability is that your performance varied in quality during the 1 minute + dance heat. In a field of 8 or more pro-am couples to judge, judges have to make snap judgments armed with only a few seconds to score any couple before shifting their gaze on the next one. If in that moment in time, your dance skills shined, you could be ranked very high. The corollary is also true as you could be scored last if the judge gazes on you when you are stuttering or skipping or your frame collapses or you collide or you misstep, etc, etc… Each judges obviously sees you at a different moment in time and scores you accordingly. So what is the relevance of this analytical data dredging exercise?
The point to me is that if everyone scored you 4th in a heat, you are consistently dancing at that level…right in the middle of the pack. You will need to improve your overall dance skills to be more competitive. But if you scored 4th in a heat that received variable scores from 1-8, a different conclusion emerges. If at least one professional judge sees your performance as the best and one as the worst in the heat, it tells you that your dancing has potential, but lacks consistency.
OK, no more of this. I hope I didn’t unnecessarily bore you with this oversimplified analysis of ballroom competition scoring from the point of view of the student. There are many more aspects that I have steered clear from that in fact may be more intriguing to the reader. Nevertheless, as with learning ballroom dance technique, learning about the culture of ballroom competition events has proven an interesting project, sufficiently complex, and filled with drama of its own. It is an evolving culture, which includes professional dancers from around the globe, politicians and VIP benefactors, and an assortment of sprouting vendors sporting beautiful, but expensive dancewear, and jewelry. And then there are the students, an interesting and diverse group of people from around the country who hop from one competition to the next, motivated by individual goals and aspirations. Indeed, the students spend their time and money in an entirely enjoyable avocation attempting to improve their dance skills, and to bring value and happiness to their present lives…..more about the students later…..
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