Judgingguidelines

Our Judging staff has
professional performance, teaching, and competition experience that spans
4 decades in the dance industry!
This is not adding their experience years it is ACTUAL experience years!

Please Note that even though we offer an adjudicated system we are still a competition.
Each routine will directly compete against the same age/style/ability division and a 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd place award will be given in each division (ie: solo-tap-intermediate-age
9-10-competitive dancers will compete against each other) The top 3 placements will be
awarded along with the medal point standing award. We award the medal standings first
then announce the top 3 performers. We also have overall high score standings for the Jr.
Division and Sr. Division collectively.

Criteria for adjudication is as follows:

Technique ~ 50 points
(further broken down into feet, hands, upper body carriage, transitions, and flexibility each at 10 point value)
Entertainment Value ~ 20 points
(further broken down into energy level, story portrayal, audience interaction, emotional execution each at a 5 point value)
Choreography ~ 20 points
(further broken down into staging, originality, musicality, and age appropriateness each at 5 point value)
Costume/Overall Appearance ~ 10 points
(further broken down into fit, hair, age appropriateness, song appropriateness, originality each at a 2 point value)
Total points possible per judge: 100

Medal Standings
Platinum ~ 291 to 300
Gold ~ 270 to 290
Silver ~ 240 to 269
Bronze ~ 210 to 239
Honorable Mention ~ 209 and below

We base this on a school type grading system...When looking at a routine, certain elements will
take away points, and certain elements will add points. It is better to have a technically clean,
entertaining, choreographically rich routine than to have a routine jam packed with difficult
elements that the dancer(s) have trouble executing well. Difficulty done well will give you added
points, but it is a double edged sword; difficulty done poorly will cause a significant deduction of
points. So as evaluating we ask ourselves is this an "A+", "A", "B", or "C" performance? Your
dance is only evaluated against the point system. At our each event we add the point standings
element and additionally award in each category/age/type division the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place
standings, if there are more than 2 in the category/age/type. Each "Top Studio" winner will also
receive an additional award. This award is determined by averaging the scores for each studio and
the studio with the largest average will win their city's "Top Studio" award.