DanceSport 101

Caspian and I went to the International Latin portion of Triangle Open this evening! I'd thought it was in the ballroom (which makes sense), but it was actually in the NCSU gym... An unglamorous venue with terrible lighting, but I guess it has more room. We arrived just in time for the silver quarter-finals - perfecto! I got to see who my competition is, and how they're dancing, and which brackets they're dancing in, and how they all placed. Not sure why, but I was pretty much underwhelmed by everybody except two couples in novice and everybody in pre-champ/champ. Not impressed by the technique of the silver and gold competitors, and I couldn't really see much of a definitive line between silver and gold, both technique-wise and figure-wise. Either I'm ignorant or overconfident.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think my judgment has something to do with the fact that I haven't competed since I was a bronzy newcomer (a few years ago), and I've taken so many lessons since that time without competing. In my mind, I still held more skilled dancers on pedestals, but only because I didn't have a perspective other than that of newcomer.

I had a great time! Got to chat with A about my lessons and plans for the future, and discussed the NCSU lessons at Elite. Saw J, who was recently hit by a car while riding a scooter, and I felt so bad for him when he rolled into the room in a wheelchair! I saw D and his partner/girlfriend - they did a great job in novice and pre-champ. Caspian and D shook hands civilly. Heh.

I should probably explain a little bit about ballroom dancing for my uninitiated readers! There are two styles: American and International. American ballroom was derived from International, and was adapted for use in smaller ballrooms, and figures were boxed, simplified, and [profaned!] tweaked. The figures, styling and technique of the two styles are different on many different points. The biggest difference is the allowance of "open" (partners release their closed hold) figures in American smooth, which are prohibited in International standard.

Within each style, there are two types of dances: Standard and Latin, and Smooth and Rhythm, for International style and American style respectively. Here are the breakdowns of each group of dances in each style of dance (in no particular order).

International

Standard:
- Waltz
- Viennese Waltz
- Tango
- Foxtrot
- Quickstep

Latin:
- Chacha
- Rumba
- Samba
- Jive
- Paso Doble

American

Smooth:
- Waltz
- Tango
- Foxtrot
- Viennese Waltz

Rhythm:
- Chacha
- East Coast Swing
- Bolero
- Mambo
- Rumba

In dancesport, which is competitive ballroom dancing, there are different levels by which dancers are judged in a variety of ways, based on their experience or placement in previous sanctioned competitions. In the USA, there are amateur, professional, and pro-am competitions. The levels are as follows, in order of increasing proficiency:

- Newcomer
- Bronze
- Silver
- Gold
- Novice
- Pre-championship
- Championship

The costumes get more elaborate the further up the scale you go, and so does the dancing, of course. It's possible for a couple to win at gold level at one competition and fail to win even at silver level in another competition, based on the skill levels of the people they're competing against. Each level up to gold has a particular syllabus that dancers have to stick to, although it's possible for a couple to win in silver or even gold using the bronze syllabus of figures - but only if their technique is superb. You get disqualified if you are dancing in a particular proficiency level and use figures from the level above it, but you can always use figures from the level below.

Most of the stuff you see on Dancing with the Stars and at Fred Astaire and other franchised ballrooms is American style. American style is much more forgiving and flashy while being less precise than International, which is more difficult and judged more critically.

There you go! Fascinating, isn't it?