In the syllabus levels of a Latin and Ballroom dance competition, there is a series of dance steps that couples must adhere to and dance only the steps that are appropriate for their level. Having been competing in the pro/am (teacher/student competitions) syllabus levels for the past 2 years, there had not been a single competition where I did not spot at least 1 out-of-syllabus incident. Is there someone on the floor monitoring this? For most competitions, it looks like there is not sufficient oversight.
Most would agree that couples often need to grab the judges’ attention in order to get noticed and place well in Dancesport competitions. Couples that incorporate dance steps from the higher levels will often have an advantage because they will be more visible on the floor. They would be performing the faster, more intricate, some would say more interesting dance routines. This is not fair to the couples who stick to the rules. One of my competing students had also spotted couples dancing “all these cool” moves in her category and began implying that I should be letting her do them as well. “No one cares for the rules, Leon”, she said. Here I am, a professional dance instructor who teaches his students stick to the syllabus and I found it hard to justify why the syllabus rules matter (other than that I stick to it for myself as a teaching method). Mind you, these pro/am students pay very well in competition fees to at least expect a fair competition system in place.
At the 2008 Manhattan Dancesport championship I went as far as complaining about it. I told the chairman of the competition that I had witnessed about 5-10 pro/am couples dancing out-of syllabus steps! He replied that he was very aware of the problem and that the officials were monitoring it very closely and giving appropriate penalties. They made an announcement about it shortly after and that was it. I heard that in some competitions, sometimes they may have come up to one or two couples to warn them about their syllabus violations, but clearly it did not change anything as this continues to happen in competitions day in and day out. This begs the question: Why is there no set system in place to handle this consistently?
Let us take a brief moment to look at Dancesport’s closest comparison in sport and art, figure skating. In figure skating, there is a whole judging panel dedicated to watching and identifying the different elements being executed. At the same time, there is a separate panel that actually judges and scores the performances. These judges also have access to video footage of the performances if extra review is needed. If the figure skating committee is going out of their way to insure that the best and fairest practices are being implemented to judge their competitions, why can’t our association do the same?
Possible Solution: There are many solutions to this problem. The simplest is to appoint at least 10 syllabus experts to act as the “syllabus monitoring board” (separate from the judges) at every competition. I say at least 10, because 2 or 3 will not get the job done. There could be as many as 24 couples on the floor at the same time and so to make sure all the couples get watched, we need a sufficient number of experts working at the same time. Their only job is to sit there, monitor each heat, and watch out for out-of syllabus moves. The “syllabus monitors” would then have a meeting with these out-of-syllabus couples to explain the specific violations. These couples would be given two options: To either move up to the next level (where they really belong with their fancy moves!) immediately or to remove the out-of-place dance moves for the subsequent rounds in their current level. If they were to violate the rules again, they would be disqualified for the day. Lastly, these competitors’ names would be kept on record to watch out for in future competitions.
In conclusion, Dancesport competitions clearly need more oversight to make sure that the syllabus is followed by all competition participants. Otherwise, what is the purpose of having syllabus level competitions?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
At no point in your article do you state whether your dancing in an OPEN heat or closed heat. If you’re dancing OPEN, then it is perfectly OK to dance out of syllabus. However, it these infractions incur in a CLOSED heat, then you have every right to complain.
Thanks for your comment
In the first sentence:
“In the syllabus levels of a Latin and Ballroom dance competition, there is a series of dance steps that couples must adhere to and dance only the steps that are appropriate for their level.”
That makes it clear that I am writing about the closed syllabus events.