Competitions
Important Deadlines
Open Mix and Match
Pay to Participate by October 14th, midnight
Register for the M&M by the end of Friday's Main Dance, $5 to participate
Mix and Match Competition
The Mix and Match competition is a chance for both leads and follows to showcase the skills that the blues dance community values, and especially those championed by Blues Muse. Dancers sign up individually then get paired up at random. Competitors will be judged not only on their individual skills, but on their abilities to work with and support their partner in an improvised setting.
The Prelims for the Mix and Match competition will take place Saturday afternoon, and the finals will take place Saturday night.
Format: The Mix and Match competition is open to any dancer not competing in the Followers' Invitational who has registered for the weekend. Preliminary rounds of competition will be held after the end of classes on Saturday, and will have a number of heats, as determined by the number of competitors. Each heat will consist of three songs, and competitors will rotate to a new partner between each song. Finalists will be posted as soon as the results have been tabulated.
Finals will take place at the Saturday Night Main Dance. In the finals, competitors will rotate to a new partner between each song. There will be three to four all-skates as determined by our judges. Follows will be judged on their connection, musicality, and movement, plus their contribution to the dance and overall collaborative partnering. Leads will be judged on their connection, musicality, and movement, as well as their receptivity and collaborative partnering. Cost of the competition is $5 per competitor.
Competition Guidelines
Criteria for Partnered Competitions
These criteria are in order of importance as they will be weighted by our judges.
Blues Aesthetic
The best thing you can do in any of our competitions is dance blues. Our judges will be primarily looking for fundamentals of blues aesthetic such as athletic posture, grounded movement, pulse, and lag, along with ephebism, coolness/hotness, polyrhythms, polycentrism, and asymmetry.
Partnership
Blues Muse is an event dedicated to partnership, above all else. We want to see you engage in that partnership in every competition dance (and every dance, in general). We’re looking for clear and comfortable connection, responsive leading, expressive following, and the creation of a dance with your partner.
Musicality
All of your dancing should come from the music. Whether this means picking a baseline pulse, texture, variation, or dancing in an idiom, our judges will be looking for your dynamic responses to the music. Our DJs have been asked to challenge you with their song choices, listen to what they are giving you, find your groove and move! We want to see not only what moves you decide to do but how you decide to do those moves. Let the music drive your movement.
Creativity
Show us what you got! If you feel really solid in your blues aesthetic, your partnership, and your musicality, we want to see your personal flair. We want to see your innovative, creative, and personal stylings driven by the music and using solid technique. We want to see you dancing you with blues as your foundation and sharing yourself with your partner to create a unique and beautiful dance.