VCS Dancers

Most judges evaluate a dancer on three major criteria: timing, technique, and interpretation/overall deportment.

• Timing concerns the ability of the dancer to follow the rhythm of the music.

• Technique has to do with the correct execution of the steps in coordination with the movements of the rest of the body, including head, arm and hand movements.

• Artistic interpretation covers that essential element of all dance and artistry in general which cannot be quantified or reduced to any set of rules or specific points, but which does concern the ability of the dancer or performer to convey a sense of feeling, understanding, and appreciation of the art form.
• The ability of the dancer including the jumping height and the confidence.

The various governing bodies of Highland dancing establish parameters for the dances themselves and scoring systems to grade the dancers and determine their class and progress from one class to another. The scoring system for these competitions begins with each dancer starting with 100 points. For any mistakes, poor execution, etc., results in subtraction of points at the judges discretion. The dancers are then ranked from most to least points, and medals and points are given based on the number of dancers in the class.

The notion of how dances were to be executed changed dramatically over the years. For instance, doing an early-20th-century-style Sword Dance in a competition today would get a dancer disqualified nearly immediately. There used to be terrible confusion as to what would be allowed (or prescribed) where, until the SOBHD came up with a standard that has become acceptable to the majority of competitive dancers.