Data Comparisons

NY Dance Festival

7 Comments

Kenneth asked about ballroom dance hair. The NY Dance Festival is live streaming its competition right now. (Feb 23, 2022). You can go watch dances. The “pro show” is tonight from 7pm eastern to whenever. Tonight my pro and his wife will be competing “Professional Smooth”. (They won “Rising Star Smooth”, which is the next lowest run last night.) If you want to watch dancing, you can go watch here: https://www.dsi-london.tv/new-york-dance-festival. The “pro” show starts at 7 pm Eastern and goes until….? (They are pretty bad about staying on schedule. Smooth is one of the later heats. I’m going to load the link around 7 pm Central and watch some of the other competitions too.)

I’m inserting a screenshot of dancing going on as I draft this post; see below. They are dancing “Standard Ballroom”. You can see the partners are all facing each other– that’s closed position and required through the entire dance in Standard. Smooth is the “American” version and they can separate into “open” position. (I dance American Smooth.)

Most of the males dancing below are pros (so teachers); most of the females pictures are students. In a live setting you can tell from the number of the lead’s bib; 400 and above means the lead amateur. You need to read the list entries to know if the follow is a pro or am, (though at the lower levels you can always tell.)

As I told Kenneth: the hair is mostly “frozen” looking. The ballerina bun is not common. These styles involve lots of gel, spray and so on.

7 thoughts on “NY Dance Festival”

  1. Lucia, at what level of dance abilities am I looking from the link you provided. To this untrained eye I see a wide range abilities. The lady’s hairdos look more varied than I see in the very top level of professional dancers.

    I saw a pretty good bump of two couples. What kind of point deduction would result from that? One of the couples appeared to attempt to make it part of their routine.

    As I often have to tell one my son’s that is probably way too much analyzing.

  2. Lucia, I watched at 7:30 PM and noticed that these dancers were more like the pros I have watched in competition. The ladies hairdos were much the same with the very tight bun. The men had similar hair cuts- short and cut above the ears. The partners look of similar age and not the difference I saw and commented on earlier.

  3. Kenneth,
    The level depends on the time you arrived at the site. Usually, the morning is one style and goes Bronze-> Silver->Gold. Then afternoon, it’s another style. Once again Bronze->Silver->Gold. Today, the afternoon looked to be “Ballroom, standard”.
    ,
    The heats will sometimes have a mix of levels (Bronze with silver or silver with Gold.)
    Also: there are age categories. The 70 and above ladies tend to be less athletic than the 40-50 even at the same “metal” level.

    If you arrived after 7 pm, then the level is pretty high all around.

    Officially, there is no specific deduction for bumping. But unofficially, it’s hard for people to not get flustered and dance worse. Also, usually, if you see the video the bump is one of the leads fault specifically. It’s a bit like car accidents. In this particular dance there is a “line of dance”. The lead coming up from behind should be able to see where he is going. So usually the bump is his fault.
    On points, the judges decide whose best but there is no official list of points for “x”, “y” or “z”. Things like “frame”, “connection”, “footwork” and “movement” matter more than specific “bumping”. But they they do interact.

  4. Lucia, I am somewhat hesitant to ask you about the dancing I saw in your link given what is going on in Ukraine and the Ukranian dancers you know, but here goes.

    There was a dance that started with the male partners in a grouped circle and the female dancers on the outside posing as sirens before they coupled up. It kept me watching longer than I intended. What is that dance called and what is all about?

  5. I don’t know!! You watched some part I didn’t see.
    There are a variety of competitions. One is “formation”. In those, a large number of people put together a sort of show. So it might have been a formation– in which case, the dance isn’t necessarily anything in particular.
    There are also “showcases”. In those, you do a sort of “number” as if you were on stage in broadway performing to an audience. A few of the students at my studio love to do show cases. I, on the other hand, don’t really grasp the notion of a showcase at this sort of competition.

  6. Lucia, I was going to make the point that the professional dancing competitions that I have watched, at least in my view, have a large “acting” content and particularly with the female dancers. I have no idea, obviously, how this would affect the judges, but some of those ladies could charm a few points out of me.

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