In ballroom dance competition, how do judges judge when they simply stand around and couples swirl past them?

Question

I've noticed that they seem to jot notes so quickly and pass the piece of paper to another staff member and that member probably passes it on to an accountant with a computer.

Answer 1

Judges are experienced (often retired) dancers and dance teachers. What they are looking for is overall good impression, speed, correct technique and posture, correct execution of the steps and artistic expression. Those are the main criteria. Costume is important too, but it's not the main thing. Good costume + terrible dancing = no score. Costume is just an attention-getter. What judges do is write down numbers of each couple (worn by leaders on their backs) corresponding to places, according to their opinion. Sheet is a pre-printed form, they write in a few numbers and that's all. That's why it's so fast. Then they pass the sheet to the person called "runner", and runner passes them to scrutineer (trained person who knows how to sum up the scores). Nowadays paper judging becoming obsolete, judges are using PDAs to transfer the scores to scrutineer's computer electronically.

Answer 2

Your terminology for the job descriptions isn't exact, but you have a point. That's why judges are very experienced dancers and the number of competing couples on the floor is often kept below the capacity of the floor. It's also why the competitors obsess over ways to catch the judge's eye (Look at the make-up and costumes in Latin!). If you've ever competed, you know there are times when you get lucky and none of the judges is looking at you when you screw up, and there are other times....

Answer 3

Prithvi and Ree are India's leading dancing duo!

They might have the answer...
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