Thoughts on MIT '04?

[Chris Stratton]

Since Larinda has been promoting the forums today, perhaps we can start a feedback discussion with people's experiences at this years MIT Open comp. (For those not familiar with the New England collegiate circuit, this is a comp hosted by a college team that is open to adult dancers as well).

And yes, we know it was far too cold in the gym each morning... it apparently takes many hours to close all the windows so facilities left them open from the warm weather earlier in the week.

[SDsalsaguy]

Hi Chris, I've never been to one of the MIT comps, this one included, so can't really comment... still wanted to welcome you to the Dance Forums though! :D

Btw, how many entries did you have this year? How many in which categories & divisions?

[DanceMentor]

Hi Chris,
I was browsing through your MIT Ballroom site...very nice!
I see you have been an active participant there, and it looks like you have a great group of people there. I can imagine it is quite nice to be a part, and have the opportunity to compete at other schools.

That's great that Larinda told you about us. I might mention it would be really cool if you could get them to put a link from MIT Ballroom site to Dance Forums, but only if it's not too much trouble.

Thanks,
David

[pygmalion]

Welcome to the forums, Chris Stratton. :D 8)

[Genesius Redux]

Hey, Chris! 8)

[Sagitta]

Welcome to df Cris! Glad to see you joining us and thanks Larinda for promoting the forums!! :D I've never participated in any dance comps myself, but I'm working my way up the ladder slowly. I'm starting with performances in non-ballroom dances actually, first, then perhaps ballroom, then maybe comps?

[Larinda McRaven]

Hi Chris, Thanks for coming by.

I have a general question, I breezed by Warren, perhaps you can answer for me.

As there are levels, beginner-intermediate etc, why is there no syllabus restriction to match the levels? I understand levels should be based on proficiency and not a collection of steps. But it is a bit hard to compare couples using continuity gold patterns against another using a closed box. Perhaps this is just my bias as it is what I am governed by at NDCA comps. Also we were told to "feel free to invigilate" but then there really is nothing to invigilate as the restrictions are almost non-existant. I did however, make a comment to the officials about a couple that was using open choreography, that is easy to spot.

Just curious.

[SDsalsaguy]

I don't mean to to hijack the thread, but what are your thoughts/feelings about judges simultaneously serving as invigilators Larinda?

[Larinda McRaven]

I don't think it should be the judges job. Let me tell you some of these heats were monstrously huge! Sometimes the runner had to wait for me to finish writing numbers at the end of the song. So can I also have done an effective job at invigilating, given the fact there is sometimes not even enough time to scan and then write? Realistically No.

But if there is something blatant that I see, then I would have to (and did) say something. The couple in question for me, I would not have called them back anyway in that dance. But what if I did want to call them back, I would have been troubled as to whether to drop them or recall them. Too much stress and too much to think about in such a short busy time.

Ultimatley I would just prefer to judge the quality of what I see and let an invigilator keep everyone in catagory or syllabus.

[Chris Stratton]

As there are levels, beginner-intermediate etc, why is there no syllabus restriction to match the levels?


I don't think there is an offical answer, but there have been various arguments made by different people over the years. (This is, afterall, a comp run and perpetuated by committee).

In my relatively short time with the team, I've tended to think of it as "a license to shoot yourself in the foot". This comp is the end of the season for many, and so it can be nice to let people have a try at using their own judgement in selecting material, rather than relying on what the ISTD thought was appropriate at a given level. Sometimes their choices are flattering, sometimes they aren't - but it's all part of learning. Like at most college comps, there is a fairly fast-paced progression through levels, driven both by time limits on newcomer & beginner, and by a faster-accruing point formula than used by USABDA/NDCA. So the idea is that the levels will reflect ability groups alone, and everyone on the syllabus side of the house gets the same material to choose from, permission to wear costumes, and all the other goodies.

Realistically, I think the format of the comp (and the comment about invigilation) comes from international style, with its comprehensive (and standardardized) gold syllabus that covers most of the basic ideas. The concept of syllabus has no universal meaning in the American styles, and in smooth there is also a much more complicated variety of skills to learn.

I know after last year there was some talk about restructuring the smooth levels to seperate the continuity & pre-continuity dancers, but no one could find a simple enough way to do it. Since we offer international foxtrot to the 'bronze year' (ie, beginner) division, it only makes sense to offer them the closely related American continuity dances.

This does mean that there is no pre-continuity offering for the the slower (or more methodically) developing fall-beginners (because the newcomer division is restricted to spring beginners). This is unfortunate in some cases, but I think the argument is perhaps that after 6 or so months of dancing, it becomes the responsability of the individual, rather than 'the system' to focus concentration on basic technique.

There may also be an implicit desire to encourage dancers to progress technically - towards continuity which is the next 'big idea' - rather than invest a lot in highly varied bronze routines that can offer little in the way of new fundamental concepts. I honestly know only 3 steps in bronze foxtrot, and wouldn't dream of attempting promenade without the flowing character of continuity to blend the transitions, but that's just the way I learned.

So in my view, the expectation is that beginner smooth will be won by continuity style dancing, unless all the continuity dancing is ugly enough that someone's fully developed bronze technique is contrastingly *******ing (which can happen). Or put more simply, the best dancing should win.

You made an interesting comment about being able to seperate "gold" american dancing from it's open form, and I'd be curious how you do that.

While not the same, there is also of course the whole issue of closed vs. open positions, and at what level open work becomes mandatory. I know sometimes I've felt that we could win an event if I were willing to never break closed hold, but if we did we would loose to those with more polished open presentation offsetting weaker closed fundamentals.

[Larinda McRaven]

You made an interesting comment about being able to seperate "gold" american dancing from it's open form, and I'd be curious how you do that.

I know and teach ISTD and NADTA/NDCA, train some Arthur Murray teachers on taking exams, Steve is formerly Freds, and I have a student that insists on DVIDA. So I have taught, been lead through, or seen just about every pattern that is in someones syllabus. So the technical question, of what is syllabus or what isn't, is easy to answer.

If I have one natural born talent and went to my grave with no other, it would be that I can follow almost anyone doing just about everything, even if it is lead is really poorly. So if I see something and think to myself "wow, there is no way I ever could ever follow that, there was no way he could lead it" then I would question its validity as a syllabus step. So I also have my own "soft" standard to go by.

The couple in question today spent about 7 measures in foxtrot going right against the line of dance, which is what first caught my eye, and there was nothing syllabus with what they were doing. At one point he spun her away she stopped herself, several feet ahead, facing away from him, and they did some "apart shadow" (for lack of a better name) choreography. At that point there was absoutely no lead/follow (unless she had eyes in the back of her head), and they were not even close enough to touch each other if they even wanted to. As it was American smooth, I felt doubly qualified to make a call on it, it was nothing I had ever seen and no way I could have danced it without being shown first. I might not have been so quick to speak up in latin though.

sometimes I've felt that we could win an event if I were willing to never break closed hold

I am right there with you on that one. We feel closed position is an absolute and shoud never be neglected. But it is American style afterall and in the upper levels the good open work will often overshadow great closed position.

And as for the syllabus restrictions, you brought up an excellent point! I never considered International foxtrot. It does seem to mean that continuity doesn't neccesarily belong only to silver and up.

[Chris Stratton]

I tend to buy into a 'functional' definition of gold smooth a lot more than the idea that something is or isn't on page 5 of a trade-secret syllabus.

But even though I like the "leadability" definition more, I still have the problem that it is to a large degree a functional one only from the perspective of some of the judges, but not from that of any of the competitors. I actually do alter my standard competition choreography on the fly by intent, rather than as a last resort, yet I know of very few of my peers who do this. Given that approach to standard, one of my major frustrations with common "gold" smooth is that there are so many actions that I cannot figure out how to lead clearly, even if we do have enough connection to theoretically manage it.

With enough attention to detail, I'm sure that I could learn to really lead these things - but if someone who wants to dance smooth off routine can't figure it out, are people who habitually rely on routines in their standard even going to notice the difference between leadable and unleadable smooth material?

[Chris Stratton]

I never considered International foxtrot. It does seem to mean that continuity doesn't neccesarily belong only to silver and up.

Bronze International Foxtrot is in an odd sitution - the book defines it, but very few comps offer it. Many seem to take the view that it should be delayed until the other dancers are at silver (and I've even seen a few instances of a WTQ silver).

There are some interesting things going on here, with mixing education and regulation. Should we be borrowing the ISTD's Associate/Licentiate/Fellow categories of dance mastery to guide our bronze/silver/gold competition structure? Do all the dances progress together, or do some only start once others reach a certain point? To what degree are comps an educational tool?

And of course this gets even more interesting in the experimental environment of college comps, where each organization can try their hand at rewriting the rules - for better, or worse.

[SDsalsaguy]

I don't think it should be the judges job. Let me tell you some of these heats were monstrously huge! Sometimes the runner had to wait for me to finish writing numbers at the end of the song. So can I also have done an effective job at invigilating, given the fact there is sometimes not even enough time to scan and then write? Realistically No.

But if there is something blatant that I see, then I would have to (and did) say something. The couple in question for me, I would not have called them back anyway in that dance. But what if I did want to call them back, I would have been troubled as to whether to drop them or recall them. Too much stress and too much to think about in such a short busy time.

Ultimatley I would just prefer to judge the quality of what I see and let an invigilator keep everyone in catagory or syllabus.
These were my thoughts as well Larinda. Aside from not having enough time, it also seems to me that this is asking for a difference in foucs as well. As a judge one should be focussed on quality/execution while an invigilating focus prioritizes type. On top of this is the variety of standards/sylabi as well as styles. I seriosuly doubt that more than a few judges, if any, actually know all of these variations.

Chris, if there isn't a syllabus restriction than what was it that was to be invigilated? Seems a bit vague to me... am I missing something?

[Chris Stratton]

Chris, if there isn't a syllabus restriction than what was it that was to be invigilated? Seems a bit vague to me... am I missing something?

The Beginner-Intermediate-Advanced levels were all restricted to gold syllabus. This is clearcut (if novel) for the international styles, but complicated in the american style in that there are 3-4 syllabi in use, and the (US)ISTD whose international syllabi are used for these events is only just now publishing the gold level of their american syllabi.

The idea was that this single syllabus/open distinction would be invigilated. College comps generally have trouble recruiting enough top notch judges, and devoting the shapest-eyed to invigilation duty alone can seem an expensive luxury. There are also some political issues in the Boston area that argue against the appointment of a chair of judges. So the idea was to have all judges report eye-catching violations and have head table staff handle the warning and penalties. In cases where the violations where noticed and the procedure was followed, it worked - though I'm told some got off the hook due to procedural irregularities.

[SDsalsaguy]

So all levels are resricted to syllabus. Are the "levels" self-selected subjective judgements or, as I think you mentioned, are levels also based on some objective criteria?

[etchuck]

Hmm... I don't know if I understand the problem. I'm sure other college comps have the same problem that you do, but I don't know whether they do what you're doing. Over here anyway, we do spell out links to those syllabi (http://www.ncsu.edu/stud_orgs/soc_dance/ti/ti2004/html/rules.html). Of course, what messes me up is that I only know bronze steps but am sometimes forced to dance silver because I had lessons six years ago in Smooth and Rhythm.

Our issue is that we have so many bronze-level competitors, I would like to personally see bronze I and bronze II, based on the "time dancing" criterion rather than automatically booting me up to silver where I'm going to get crushed.

Of course, our judges here do notice people dancing out of syllabus and don't mark them for recall.

I wish I could write more on this topic, but a) I have to go to work, and b) going to work today means driving to Charleston.

[Taita]

Interesting Competition....

Great venue with adequate parking (a rarity in Cambridge!). The show featured Bryan Watson and Carmen (for you non-ballroom people, they are the top ranked professional latin couple in the world! :shock: ). In my opinion, the show would have been appreciated even more without the spotlights as they tended to more often than not, blind the audience instead of highlighting the performers. The competition placements were rather interesting and it featured a same-sex couple (male) placing third in Pre-champ latin! :shock: While there were a few blemishes (spotlights blinding the audience, creative judging, etc....) this was another great comp which was truly enjoyed by all.

The Syllabus rules are unique and the competitors seem to enjoy doing 'whatever's in the book' I'm sure Chris can comment more on the registration rules SD, but I believe competitors were allowed to register in 2 adjacent levels (i.e. Intermediate, and Advanced). The "levels" are a subjective judgement, but most people interpreted them as follows: Beginner = Bronze, Intermediate = Silver, Advanced = Gold.

[Chris Stratton]

The "levels" are a subjective judgement, but most people interpreted them as follows: Beginner = Bronze, Intermediate = Silver, Advanced = Gold.

Competition levels will always be somewhat subjective, but I think they were less so in this case than you would see under USABDA or NDCA rules, and I didn't notice many couples that seemed miscatagorized (a few stood out, but there were plausible reasons for why they were dancing what they did).

In the 'sandbagging' direction, both the time rules and an aggressive points forumal that feeds off the numerous comps held over the school year combine to push people up towards dancing against their true peers.

There is an ongoing debate if the collegiate 'gold' field really meets an abstract standard of gold quality, but calling it 'advanced' sort of dodges that, by simply making it the place for people who are no longer fair competition for the 'intermediate' field.

Allowing costumes and the full syllabus at beginner-advanced may remove some tempatation to dance above one's level (though allowing two consecutive levels in response to popular demand does tend to restore this temptation).

[Anonymous]

Sometimes the runner had to wait for me to finish writing numbers at the end of the song.

Hi, Larinda! One of the things I wanted to mention - I really appreciated the fact that you and the other judges for the session used the entire song, rather than just trying to get your marks as quickly as possible. It's really nice when the judges watch the entire dance and use all the time to really make the best possible judgement.

I would note that while I announced the Sunday afternoon session as the "American syllabus" session, the first level of American style competition - the Newcomer - was actually danced Saturday afternoon. The Newcomer level was bronze syllabus restricted (I wasn't there so I don't know how much this was enforced).

I think Chris is basically right about how the syllabus rules got written that way - they were designed for International style, and got applied to American style without a lot of regard for the differences. I do think the issue of 'multiple syllabi' is a problem - I first learned ballroom in a two dance "chain" that had basically unleadable side by side figures in their Bronze (!) syllabus.

For American style, rather than using a syllabus based definition, I think it's better to use something like the 'closed foot position' definition of 'bronze', as you mentioned during our brief discussion at the comp. For Smooth, at least, that differentiates pretty clearly between 'bronze' and continuity - I'm not sure about Rhythm.

It would be nice to come up with as clear and simple a differentiator between continuity and open. Some of our previous invigilators have used the "I know it when I see it" approach - and indeed, there's pretty good agreement on what "it" is - but I suspect competitors would complain if that were actually the published definition.

(Hm, a reasonably sized text box for editing - nice!)

Warren J. Dew

[SDsalsaguy]

Chris, Taita, & Warren, just wanted to tell you all to feel free to post any photos you may have from the weekend in our photo album (http://www.dance-forums.com/album/). We'd love to see! :D

(Hm, a reasonably sized text box for editing - nice!) :lol: Glad you like it! :lol:

[Kitty]

Hi Chris, Thanks for coming by.
As there are levels, beginner-intermediate etc, why is there no syllabus restriction to match the levels? I understand levels should be based on proficiency and not a collection of steps. But it is a bit hard to compare couples using continuity gold patterns against another using a closed box.

That was me doing the box. We got to semifinals by dancing just 3 steps :-). My partner didn't know the continuity style. We thought we were dancing bronze...

[Warren J. Dew]

Just goes to show how good technique can trump flashy choreography. Congratulations!

[SDsalsaguy]

Good for you Kitty (you and your partner that is)!

As Warren says, good technique should be rewarded. (Also reflects well on the judging... )

[Kitty]

The "levels" are a subjective judgement, but most people interpreted them as follows: Beginner = Bronze, Intermediate = Silver, Advanced = Gold.
Allowing costumes and the full syllabus at beginner-advanced may remove some tempatation to dance above one's level (though allowing two consecutive levels in response to popular demand does tend to restore this temptation).

What is wrong with people dancing above their level? As long as they don't dance below...

[Kitty]

And another question I had:
Why there were no fun dances this year at MIT?

[Chris Stratton]

And another question I had:
Why there were no fun dances this year at MIT?

They were cut last year to accomodate time pressures of the show, extra open levels, and generally increased attendance. Attendance seemed to drop a little this year (too close to finals, unfortunate conflict with Rutgers, bad feelings from last year's preliminary rounds, etc) so there probably would have been time for a few if that had been known in the planning stages.

Unfortunately fun dances are harder to slot into gaps than general dances, because if you get a huge >50 couple field, even with deep cuts it takes a while to finish the event.

[pygmalion]

Fun dances as opposed to general dances? Huh?

[Chris Stratton]

Fun dances as opposed to general dances? Huh?

General dances are unorganzied social dancing for eveyone (competitors, audience, staff, occasionally even the judges will jump in if it's an informal event)

Fun dances are somewhat goofy competitive events usually run in an informal manner. Many ideas have been tried over the years - some typical favorites:

Reverse roles events
Same sex latin (quite outrageous usually)
Variable tempo or Medleys of different dances
Aadvanced dancers paired with beginners
distorted dances - 'robotic' cha-cha, back to back or mirror image tango
goofy costumes - pajama and bunny slipper swing

Quite often an event will gain some extra 'complications' by the final round, such as tempo changes, uncommon dances (peabody), mandatory partner changes, whatever.

[pygmalion]

That sounds like so much fun!

[Kitty]

It does!

I was gonna win the reverse roles one dancing with my boyfriend:-)

[pygmalion]

How do they organize the fun dances? Sounds like a cool idea for otherwise ordinary USABDA dances. :idea:

[Kitty]

And another question I had:
Why there were no fun dances this year at MIT?

They were cut last year to accomodate time pressures of the show, extra open levels, and generally increased attendance. Attendance seemed to drop a little this year (too close to finals, unfortunate conflict with Rutgers, bad feelings from last year's preliminary rounds, etc) so there probably would have been time for a few if that had been known in the planning stages.

Unfortunately fun dances are harder to slot into gaps than general dances, because if you get a huge >50 couple field, even with deep cuts it takes a while to finish the event.

Yeah, we almost went to Rutgers. Normally our team goes to both.

I thought that allowing dancing at multiple levels would have increased number of people in each category.

I love general dances! I just was disappointed I didn't have an opportunity to show off my leading skills and my boyfriend's following skills at any of the comps this year.

[etchuck]

Usually I would be told what the fun dances were at on-site registration. That way I can plan with whom I'll try reverse-role or three-way or same-sex or team match.

However, for your USABDA dances, I think you should just stick to socials. It's too risque to expect everyone to take part in reverse-role samba for example.

[pygmalion]

Not just risque, impossible. Very few people can samba, period. Can you imagine asking them to reverse gender roles? :shock: Eeeek! Total disaster. Entertaining, but disastrous.

[etchuck]

Reverse role paso??? okay... never mind.

I'm just saying that USABDA dances are social dances, and unfortunately "fun dances" just don't mix for whatever reason. At our local swing dance, there were actually a few people upset at the jack-and-jill competition that was organized. Don't know why. People would rather freeze-and-switch-partners than do anything unconventional.

[Kitty]

Not just risque, impossible. Very few people can samba, period. Can you imagine asking them to reverse gender roles? :shock: Eeeek! Total disaster. Entertaining, but disastrous.

I competed in samba with a girl (I was leading if you can call that "leading"). She learned samba 2 weeks before the comp, and we decided to compete together 1 day before the event. We got a callback!

[Kitty]

Reverse role paso??? okay... never mind.

It is perfect! He will be a bull! :D

[pygmalion]

I competed in samba with a girl (I was leading if you can call that "leading"). She learned samba 2 weeks before comp and decided to compete together 1 day before the event. We got a callback!

And the majority of the people you're dancing with are young or youngish undergrad and grad students. Enter the real world, and you'll be dancing with old codgers ... at least mentally old. Learning and competing in a dance within a two week period is unlikely to happen. :?

[SDsalsaguy]

Speaking of "fun dances," UCSD's DBTS (Day by the Shores) comp features a "Wacky Team Match" comsisting of Cross Cha Cha (girl leads, guy follows), Tacky Tango, Endurance Swing (faster and faster tempo music), and Pop the Balloon Foxtrot (the gentelman in each couple has a balloon tied to one ankle... as the couples dance they try to pop the other couple's balloons, thus eliminating them).

[pygmalion]

That sounds hilarious ... especially since I'm getting a visual of how that would go over with the retirees at a typical USABDA dance! :shock: :lol:

[NielsenE]

Hello,
My name is Eric Nielsen, another dancer from MIT. I was this year's event organizer. Larinda mentioned this forum while there so I'm stopping by.

Someone asked about photos:
http://ballroom.mit.edu/gallery/

I have 800 uploaded, another 1600 to go. We'll also have videos from all the finals up over the next week or so.

Chris and Warren have given the historic reason for the all syllabus allowed in any syllabus level aspect of MIT. (There also used to be only two non-open levels offered -- beginner and advanced, which didn't make the bronze=beginner, silver=intermediate, etc... correlation as obvious.) If I were to run the competition again, I would change to the normal syllabus restrictions, however.

Thank you to all who attended, and thank you to all of our judges. I was especially glad that Stephen and Larinda were able to adjudicate for us.

If you have any other questions about the event I'ld be happy to answer them.

Eric D. Nielsen
2004 MIT Open, Coordinator

[pygmalion]

Hello NielsenE. Welcome to the forums.

I'll go and peruse your picture gallery. Lots of good shots, I'm sure.

Congratulations. From the discussions here, it appears that yours was a well-done and successful event.

It's nice to have you join us here in the forums. :D

Jenn

[Larinda McRaven]

Hi Eric
listen (http://www.connecticutballroom.com/mit.mp3) :wink:

[NielsenE]

Yeah, our lead DJ, had a little fun with that part of the pre-planned music. :) At least it wasn't the Little Ritchie VW (I Feel Pretty) or the "Walking 'Round in Women's Underware" foxtrot.

[pygmalion]

Oh my goodness! I just looked at the MIT photo gallery! :D :D I've gotta be there as a spectator! When's next years?

[NielsenE]

We're normally the first or second week of April. We'll be meeting the the MIT facilities people next week to see when they have space availible.

I hope I can get the other 1500 photos up soon, but I'm moving from New Hampshire to Mass this weekend and and waaaaay behind in my packing.

[Chris Stratton]

Yeah, our lead DJ, had a little fun with that part of the pre-planned music. :) At least it wasn't the Little Ritchie VW (I Feel Pretty) or the "Walking 'Round in Women's Underware" foxtrot.

Yes, unfortunately there was no time for the traditional team match featuring reverse roles foxtrot...

[NielsenE]

Hi Chris, I've never been to one of the MIT comps, this one included, so can't really comment... still wanted to welcome you to the Dance Forums though! :D

Btw, how many entries did you have this year? How many in which categories & divisions?
http://ballroom.mit.edu/competitions/register/MIT04/
has a summary block of the registrations for the breakout of entries. 2403 total entries.

Results are at http://ballroom.mit.edu/competitions/results/MIT04/
General information (now historic) about the competition
http://ballroom.mit.edu/comp/

Eric

[Kitty]

Stony Brook Dance Team has videos of Newcomer Waltz and Foxtrot finals.

(Those were the events I won, by the way.:-))

[spatten]

Hey MIT guys and gals,

I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the video you put on the website of 2003 championship competition - and I hope you will do the same again this year. I enjoyed seeing the dancers at a collegiate competition - something I never get to see stuck in the collegiate comp free zone known as Texas.

Thanks,
Scott

[Porfirio Landeros]

What's this????
http://www.porfland.com/hosting/lar-tat.gif
;););););)

[pygmalion]

Hehe! :lol: :lol: :lol: Tattoo, I'm guessing? :? Lovely shoes, though. :lol:

[Chris Stratton]

Maybe Steve needs to work on accuracy in his continuity ending?

[SDsalsaguy]

Maybe Steve needs to work on accuracy in his continuity ending?
:lol:

[Larinda McRaven]

you all are funny... :D

[pygmalion]

Nice tattoo. I hope you know it's all in fun. I haven't gotten mine yet;I've been asking around here, looking for a good artist. I have three tattoos planned, if I can sit still under the ink gun that long. :oops: :? :lol:

[Larinda McRaven]

of course...
you have all three planned? I waffled for years about what I would get. And when I went in to do the deed I still changed my mind again.

AND I just looked at the MIT photos and saw the one above Porfirio so kindly posted for us. My nose is big but not THAT BIG. There is some dudes bald head behind me making my nose look really really big, whereas I would say that is only moderately big.

[mamboqueen]

The pictures are great. God bless you for doing all that -- that is dedication!

Pygmalion; if you come up for next year's comp, I'll treat you to a cocktail! Lots of good food/drink in that neck of the woods! Just make sure to bring your flannels; you can never count on the weather here!

[pygmalion]

Oh yeah. I'm from up north, so I know how April weather can be... any darn way it wants! :lol:

[Warren J. Dew]

Hey MIT guys and gals,

I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the video you put on the website of 2003 championship competition - and I hope you will do the same again this year.

Both Eric and I have tape of the open finals, and Eric has tape of almost all the other finals as well. Eric is planning to put all the finals up on the MIT site; I'm planning to put the open finals up on Ballroom Video News (see my new sig) eventually. We may combine the best shots from both our tapes if we get really motivated.

In the meantime, feel free to look through all the other videos on the Ballroom Video News site if you haven't already, though I'm kind of behind on getting the most recent tapes up.

[mamboqueen]

I'm having trouble opening these video files. It first prompted me to download Quicktime, which I did. But, when I go back and click on the link, the video doesn't open. Any ideas? I'd love to see them :)

:headwall:

[Kitty]

I'm having trouble opening these video files. It first prompted me to download Quicktime, which I did. But, when I go back and click on the link, the video doesn't open. Any ideas? I'd love to see them :)
:headwall:

They are huge. You probably have to wait like 40 minutes after clicking on them.

[Chris Stratton]

You definitely want to right-click and save the files to disk, then go get a cup of coffee. That way you can also watch them again without redownloading. If you have a slower computer, get the small versions or it may not be able to 'think' fast enough to keep them moving smoothly.

[Warren J. Dew]

Oops, I should have mentioned that. I've tried to make these reasonably high quality videos - or at least, high quality by web standards, which is to say, not too much worse than VHS - but that means they are big. The download time ranges from a few minutes on a T1, cable modem, or fast DSL connection to several hours on a phone line (which is why a broadband connection is strongly recommended for the site). It can also be slower if several people are downloading at once (the site runs on my cable modem so it doesn't have near infinite bandwidth like the MIT site does).

I've used some of the latest compression algorithms to keep the files from being any bigger than they already are, but that does mean, as Chris notes, that a reasonably fast computer is needed. The recommendations on the site are based on feedback from previous users, so they should be pretty accurate.

It would be interesting to get some discussion going on the MIT videos once they are up - and perhaps on the other videos as well.

[NielsenE]

So I'm moved into my new apartment and I've dumped the ~3 hours of final footage to my computer. I plan to start producing the videos tonight. Like Warren has said, most of these will be large. I will make both larger (high quality) and smaller (fewer pixels, higher compression) samples. Sorry about the delay, my move ate up an extra few days....

[spatten]

Thanks Warren for the tip. I will definately check out the ballroom video news site, I am so excited about watching some more video.

Scott

[tasche]

Nice site Warren. I'm goign to go d/l these and see if I can get soem work done before I sepnd all afternoon watching them

[NielsenE]

I have the first 3 sets of videos from MIT posted now (Advanced Rhythm, Open Rhythm, Pre-championship Latin) at http://ballroom.mit.edu/gallery/
click the "2004 MIT Open" top level gallery and then the "Final Videos (Newcomer-Championship" at the bottom of that page to get to the videos.

Each video has a large and small format, small is still quiet large between 5 MB for a one-dance and 20 for a five-dance.

You'll probably want to right-click and save as, instead of left-clicking to follow the link.

I'm trying to get a level-style combination done each day, so expect 2-4 videos to appear every day. I'll probably reorganize them in a little while into style sub-albums, and maybe enve large/small subs as well. I'm doing them in the order that I dumped the tapes to my laptop, which is why it started in the middle.

[Kitty]

Another comment about MIT comp:
I loved it that they made sure all of the recalled couples were on the floor (at least for finals and semifinals). That was cool since it was difficult to hear or understand which numbers were called.

Also one of my teammates couldn't find her partner when they announced who was recalled and didn't make it to her (first) heat of that round, but they let them go in the second heat.