BOSTON — Aubrey Anderson of Oceanside High School and Harper Gordon of Camden Hills Regional High School competed in the Eastern United States DanceSport Championships Feb. 19 to Feb. 21 in Boston.

Over 400 dancers competed in various styles of ballroom dance during this three-day event. Competitors of all ages and skill levels gathered at the Renaissance Waterfront Hotel to compete. 

The girls competed in both American Smooth and International Latin dances and won a variation of first and second place ribbons.

According to the organization, International Latin dances are “an internationally-recognized style of Latin American dancing” and American Smooth is “a style of dancing in which open work is allowed.” 

Anderson won gold in the Pro/Am Smooth Open Bronze scholarship dance and Gordon won gold in Pro/Am Smooth Silver A scholarship.

SCORING

During the event, from five to 11, and sometimes more, judges will rank the dance couples based on their skills, presentation, and showmanship. Scores from all the judges are combined to obtain the final standings. Adjudication is both an objective and subjective process and that is why several judges are used to ensure fairness, the organization notes. 

In preliminary rounds leading up to a final round of an event/heat, the judges are asked to "recall" a certain number of dancers to the next round. Judges select to recall couples they think are the best and the couples with the most marks moves into the next round.

Once six or seven couples reach the final, DanceSport uses the skating system method to determine the results. This means that the judges rank every couple in every dance from first through sixth or seventh.

The couple with the most first place marks is the overall winner. The couple with the next highest number of first or second place marks will place second, and so on.

Tiebreaker rules determine which couple finishes higher in the event of a tie. These rules can be very complex, and an official known as a Scrutineer has the painstaking task of taking all the judges' marks and tabulating the results for callbacks and making the necessary calculations to determine the placements, applying the tiebreaker rules in close cases.

Dominique Gordon contributed to this story. Information was also provided by USA Dance/DanceSport

Reach the sports department at: sports@penbaypilot.com.