The competition that could change everything

The competition that could change everything

2 days trapped in #Chiberia. 2 extra days tacked-on to winter break. And 2 days for the dance community to digest and reflect on the Sears Centre comp — a historic and crazy IHSA contest that could usher in hope and change for the future of competitive dance.

This contest had a lot going for it: awesomely comfy seats for the fans, a high-quality combo of judges, and a unique mix of 3A varsity teams, including some new routines in 3A and 2A.

And then there’s the down side. Sketchy cell reception and no public wi-fi. A one-routine limit (as a combined cheer event, there was just no time to cram more routines into an already long day). And that weird, subtle vibe that the day belonged to cheer and they grudgingly and graciously invited in the dance community. The dance crowd got the message that this party was all Illinois Recreational Cheerleading, hooray, awesome, woohoo — oh, and IHSA dance is here, too.

Plenty of arguments exist for bringing back categories, but 2 new ones popped up at Sears Centre, especially at awards.

First, the awards ceremony felt cheer-dominated, and that is in no way cheer’s fault. They’ve got divisions and categories. IHSA dance? 1A, 2A, 3A, and that’s it. 9 teams (3 per division) got mentioned at awards out of the nearly 60 varsity teams that spent their winter break preparing for this contest. Once a dance division was announced, it was back to the cheer side for the “medium-smallish varsity squads from 847 with 3 guys using flags instead of cards” division. Exaggeration? Sure, but not by much.

The nicest thing about the awards was that the announcer unwittingly used those old IDTA division names that the dance community is most used to (“triple-A” instead of the IHSA’s “3A”). We can appreciate those 3 extra awards at the end, though: best technique, best synchronization, best choreography. That is, until you realize that IRCA probably hands out these kinds of awards at their contests, and had to come up with something for dance at Sears. Then their technique, synch, and choreo awards start to sound a little borrowed compared to TDI’s “best artistic” and “best technical” score of the day.

Second, that TIE. Ties galore filled the placement sheets at IHSA sectionals last year, but ties were a no-go at Sears. One could say that this tie had to be broken because it involved 1st place. But a veteran dancer pointed out to us that a tie was left in place for a TDI state championship between St. Charles North and Lake Park a few years back. If Team Dance Illinois can let 2 teams tie for a state championship, surely IHSA can let 2 teams tie for a win at a normal competition. [Update on 1/10/14: IHSA tells us that the contest was entirely run by IRCA, and if IHSA had their way, they would have let the tie stand.]

This little conundrum has an easy fix: categories. On this day, an outstanding hip hop routine tied with an outstanding open dance / jazz routine. Why artificially create a winner and loser if the two dances have no logical reason to go head-to-head in the first place?

Props go out to everyone caught up in the mess. We still have an enthusiastically high level of confidence in that particular set of judges who probably got the scores right but were working under an inherently flawed system. We’re proud of all 60 teams who stressed over getting ready to compete while somehow trying to relax over the holidays. And the 3A field was pretty awesome with the strongest top 5 in a very long time.

And we’re optimistic that Sears Centre ’14 is launching several conversations about where teams might want to spend their competition resources and efforts next season.  It’s up to dancers, coaches, parents, and school administrators to take this post-Sears moment and turn it into positive change.  One thing is for sure, though: the calls for change just got louder and more united.

Be part of the change: help us build our database of scores and routines by sharing score sheets and placements. Dance Hub Illinois and 8 Count Audio want to make sure that teams can enjoy some of the openness of information that the dance community was used to before IHSA dance emerged last season. Together, we can remind everyone that ours has already been a sport for at least 4 decades.

Together, we can fix this.

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