View from the Sidelines

The week of the Cape Town International Competition has come to an end, and wow what an experience it has been!
Unfortunately due to injury I could not participate, however I was still well involved in the whole event. On the first day I came in to let them know I couldn't dance, ending up helping out and for the whole week. Without realizing it, it lead me to be a runner for the director and all the judges where I saw it all from a totally different perspective; from the sidelines.

Whilst watching behind the scenes, all the shows, observing the competitors on and off stage, getting the scope from the judges point of views and how they operate during a competition I got a clearer understanding on how it is all perceived by the top, how it all works.

Competitiors:

• Watching from the side, during rehearsals there were a lot of nerves coming from most dancers -full on apprehensive vibes. It was interesting to see how on stage they suddenly lit up,  performed a whole lot better than in the rehearsals. It was a different take to in a company, where most perform a lot more in rehearsal. 
• I realized it was treated quite a lot like a sport- rehearse and train, repeat loads for one chance only, especially the international coaches were very strict on every minute detail of the dancers' technicalities, almost groups/teams from the different countries, quite a few were just focused on how they looked and on the steps rather than the performance.
• Overall a friendly competition, where a lot were there for the fun and experience of it even though there were medals to be won.

Judges point of view:

• A lot more relaxed than I ever expected. They were all lovely, and i thought had the right intentions towards the end results. 
• Although there is the general marking, they all had a rough idea from day 1 who would go through or not to the next rounds. A lot of it relied on opinions and general liking rather than just on the pure marks, where there was a bit of leeway to the marking system if they wanted another dancer to go through etc.
• Unlike a sport where the end result relies on a certain time or number, artistry was considered. They made a invaluable point about the general training here in South Africa where they have talent, but there isn't that proper fines to their training, where they needed to work more on the upper body… interesting!
• Mentioned what they look for in contemporary, mainly wanting to see more movement and contemporary techniques. Although the acrobatic tricks were impressive to the audience, and the constant falling to the knees and rolling through the feet, they wanted to see more dancing rather than just up and down. They also mentioned how it is harder to define what is contemporary dance these days as it is a too vast spectrum of styles.

They were also discussing maybe getting variety of dances to choose from rather than choosing anything so to see if someone has a lack of coordination or faults, therefore easier to mark. This really took me back to thinking how competitions treat dancing as a sport, focusing more on how well it is done. They made a good point of how it runs like a business in someways where they need spectators. They would get bored if they saw the same dance over and over again, therefore money would be lost. Is it better to please the audience or judges in competitions?

From an audience point of view this was the most interesting! The audience rave on the tricks and high legs! Anything impressive, they love. Yes I am sure the general audience would appreciate a beautiful white swan variation, or dying swan but what wins them over are how many pirouettes a guy does in the fiery Don Q solo, how many double fouettes from the girl. Yes it requires huge skill and all the best dancers of the world can probably do this, but it does not define a good dancer. Everyone is so individual, and if they can captivate the audience through their movement then they have done their job.

Overall it was a great week, hard at times, but an eye opener to what is out there for me and the country. That is what is great about this compeition, trying to merge that gap between the international and national dancers and I am sure in years to come it will improve. To be exposed to this whole other level has been great, to see the tricks of the trade and artistry of a whole nation of dancers. I was so proud of all the South africans who participated as well, and I hope this improvement will continue to grow.