A COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM FOR JUDGING DANCESPORT COMPETITIONS - AN INNOVATIVE APPLICATION
A COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM FOR JUDGING DANCESPORT COMPETITIONS - AN INNOVATIVE APPLICATION

Summary/Abstract: Dancesport involves a variety of body movements performed to the rhythm of a song that is materialized in a choreography piece where the two partners try to convey emotions in a unique and personal way, which leads us to assert that dance has no boundaries, no barriers, it is simply felt and expressed. Dancesport provides the necessary framework to transmit a compositional message, trigger emotions, present an artistic creation, generate a show, that is why assessing the dancers’ performance often has a subjective character as regards technical execution, artistic mastery, plasticity and beauty of movement, shortly, the quality of dance. In this research, we developed and used an evaluation/ judging system which included five criteria: movement to music, posture and coordination, quality of movement and balance, partnered relationship and leading, choreography and presentation, and a larger or smaller number of sub-criteria. The aim was to prove the efficiency of a computerized system intended to reduce subjectivity in the evaluation of dancers’ competitive performance. Transposition of the evaluation/judging system to a computerized application using Web-based technology with extension for tablet ensures effectiveness for the judging panel, reducing the time needed to establish rankings, facilitating the work of the competition Secretariat and removing the possible human errors. The application summarized information on organized competitions, users, couples of dancers, dances, classes, age categories, to which each judge can login to access scoring sheets/per criterion/dance and check each sub-criterion for each component, male and female counterparts. The major difference between the two evaluation systems (one used by the DanceSport Federation, the other developed by us) could be noted in the hierarchy of couples in the mid-ranking, where the value level of dancers was close and their order in the ranking was decided by a few tenths or hundredths of a point.

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