Competitions
Important Deadlines
Novice - Pro-Am Competition
Pay $5 to Participate by October 4th, midnight
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Open - Mix and Match Competition
Pay $5 to Participate by October 4th, midnight
Novice Competition
This is a Novice-Invitational competition. Newcomers sign up individually and will have a prelim, where they will dance and be evaluated for finals based on the criteria below. For those who make finals, they will be paired randomly with an invited dancer (“Muse”) who will be their partner for all of finals.
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The novice competition is for you if you've been dancing blues for less than four years and have never finaled in a competition or competed in multiple competitions at national events.
If you are unsure of whether or not you count as a novice dancer we ask that you participate in the Open Mix & Match competition! We want to make the novice competition a space to acknowledge and highlight our newest dancers. Please help us in supporting this goal!
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Novice competition prelims will happen Saturday after classes in the ballroom, and finals will take place Sunday night!
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Muses
Muses will be invited to participate by organizers. We will be looking for folks who embody the spirit of the event, and who are (dare I say - competitively?) excited about showcasing these values with a novice partner.
Open Mix and Match Competition
The Open 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 as individuals, then get paired up at random for the competition. Competitors will be judged not only on their individual skills, but on their ability to work with and support their partner in an improvised setting.
The Mix and Match competition is open to any dancer not competing in the Muse-Comer Invitational who has registered for the weekend. Preliminary rounds will have a number of heats, as determined by the number of competitors. Each heat will consist of three to four songs, and competitors will rotate to a new partner between each song. Finalists will be posted as soon as the results have been tabulated.
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.
The Prelims for the Open Mix and Match competition will take place Saturday after classes, and the finals will take place Saturday night.
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.