Determining Partnering Effects in the “Rise and Fall” Motion of Competitive Waltz by the Use of Statistical Parametric Mapping

Abstract

Background. Competitive dance, also known as “DanceSport,” is a competitive style of ballroom dance. The waltz features a particular movement in which the dancer lifts and lowers his/her body while dancing. In ballroom dance terms, this movement is known as the “rise and fall.” The purpose of this research was to examine partnering effects in relation to the vertical component of dancers’ center of mass when performing the competitive waltz.
 Methods. This investigation was conducted through statistical parametric mapping of the movements of 13 national level competitive dance couples and a world champion couple as they danced both solo and in pairs. The Xsens MVN system was used to record their movements, using a capture rate of 240 Hz.
 Results. We consequently found that, in the pair condition, the vertical component of the center of mass was smaller for the male dancers and larger for the champion male dancer when compared to their respective solo conditions. However, for the female dancers and the champion female dancer, unlike the males, no significant partner effects were found.
 Conclusion. Therefore, in terms of partner effects, the “rise and fall.” motion was smaller for the male dancers and larger for the champion male dancer.
 Keywords: DanceSport, ballroom, kinematics, partnering, statistical parametric mapping.

Kinematic criteria determining swing movement of world class dancesport athletes

“…It has been pointed out that a clear and in-depth description of the assessment components is the basis for awarding an objective rating [10,11], although recent global literature also indicates that the swing movement of the world's best couples in standard dances has not been studied in depth [8,12,13]. the men from the top-level group achieved higher maxi-mum pelvic rotation angular velocities and minimum thoracic rotation angular velocities than the men from the intermediate group.…”

“…However, the literature emphasises that a kinematic evaluation of the pelvic and joint centre movement technique of partners in standard style could yield very important practical applications [3,7]. According to Yoshida et al [8], kinematic evaluation of other standard dances is desirable for learning technique or as an additional tool to better evaluate dance couples in competitions. Kinematic evaluation of world-class dance sport athletes is presented in this study, which makes it unique.…”

What are the kinematic characteristics of the world champion couple in competitive ballroom dance during the waltz's spin movement?

“…All participants were free of injury and wore comfortable dance shoes. These participants were the same who participated in our previous study (Yoshida et al, 2020(Yoshida et al, , 2021.…”

“…This approach of employing champions (top-ranked experimental participant) in a specific field for conducting biomechanics analyses (Fujii and Moritani, 2012;Whiteside et al, 2013;Hobara et al, 2019) is used previously. We also included the world champion couples in competitive ballroom dancing (Yoshida et al, 2020(Yoshida et al, , 2021 in our previous biomechanics studies.…”

“…Advanced dancers frequently use spin movements during the competitive ballroom dancing. In our previous kinematic study (Yoshida et al, 2020(Yoshida et al, , 2021, we analyzed the basic movements of waltz dancers as they turned ∼135 • while moving three steps in three beats. A typical waltz spin movement was ∼315 • in the first three beats and two revolutions in the next three beats.…”