30 years of IDO World Tap dance Championships
Judging Tap dance 46 In my opinion Tap dance has at least two very valuable aspects: 1. The cultural, entertaining or festival part of tap dancing 2. The competitive part of tap dancing
Logically the Tap Dance World Championships belong to the second part. To compete at the World Tap dance Championships makes everybody better. The reason is you want to be better than the others and win. Now the basic question is: What prevails in the competitive part? What makes somebody a winner and other dancers be placed behind her/him? For this ranking we need clear rules. Basically world-wide there are 2 different competitive models used in dance competitions: 1. The medal Championships where more than one dancer can achieve gold, silver and bronze meda ls. There is no “on -top- winner”. 2. The so called “ Olympic spo rt system” (Ranking System) with placements from the first to the last place. Places might be shared but there is only one “number one” (Gold medal). Since my beginning in the world of dance- competitions I have been used to the “Ranking System”. Most dancesport competitions in Ballroom- and Latin American dances , competitive Rock’n’Roll etc. use t his system. It has also been introduced used by the IDO General Secretary. Mr. Moreno Polidori for IDO at the beginning. T he “Skating system” is used for many dance competitions. It has been created by a British gentlemen, Mr. Arthur Dawson. Basically in the first rounds the judges mark dancers for the next rounds with an “x” (cross) and in the finals judges place the dancers from 1 st - 6 th (7 th or 8 th ) place. If you want to dive into the Skating System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skating_system To rank competitors you need rules, made by professionals of the dance. In the early days there were no specific rules for tap dance, besides “normal” danc e rules, like being in the beat and/or rhythm and “convincing” the audience and adjudicators. In the “early IDO” all dancers competed together, solos male, solos female and duos. The time frame was 1 minute. There is no doubt this short time is excellent for dances like Disco or HipHop. But never for any dance in Performing Arts. In 1990 I introduced Mr. Matthias Meusel from Freiburg, Germany to the Mr. Polidori. Matthias Meusel was and is one of THE tap dance experts in Germany. Following his professional advice the IDO changed the time frame to about 2 minutes for each tap show. We also enforced a proper wooden dance floor as a rule,. Looking back one of “my” biggest problems in the “early” days was the education of the judges sent by the IDO member countries. Undoubtfully they were dance experts but only some of them had a tap background. Together with Bill Fowler † (USA) and Jadran Živkovic (Slovenia) - both true tap experts - we were able to set standards: all judges must be “tap dance expe rts Later IDO also requested to change the judges alternatively, so no judge will be in business for two consecutive years. This to give the dancers a broader perspective. It was a great success. And looking back for more than 20 years the judges of the “IDO World Tap dance Championship s” have absolutely been marvellous and competent coming from so many different countries in the world of tap - all around the world. All tap experts.
46 I use both wordings: Judge and Adjudicator as nouns and verbs. They mean the same.
535
Made with FlippingBook Digital Proposal Creator