Spirit of Competition
Although the highest scoring dancers are ranked according to their overall scores, dance schools and competition production companies emphasize that dancers are primarily competing against themselves, and thus competitive dance is not so much about competing, but rather is an opportunity to:
- Receive valuable critiques from dance professionals. Competition companies provide original judges' scoresheets and critiques and, in some cases, audio recordings of judges' comments to dancers, to help them improve their technique and routines.
- Watch and learn from other dancers. Dance schools often instruct their dancer to spend their free time watching other routines.
Dancers are expected to conform to proper etiquette at competitions. They are expected to be courteous to each other, to applaud other routines, to not enter or exit the auditorium during a performance, etc. Aside from these standard rules of etiquette, many competition companies impose additional rules. For example, American Dance Awards requires all dancers to say "thank-you" when presented with an award.
Read more about this topic: Competitive Dance
Famous quotes containing the words spirit of, spirit and/or competition:
“It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“I presume that you are compassionate: to be without pity means to be sick in body and spirit. But one should have spirit in abundance, so as to be permitted to be compassionate! For your pity is detrimental to you and to everyone.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)