Cheating on the Scoreboard: How ICDR is Ending the Culture of Fake Wins in Youth Dance Sports

Photo: Tara Picford (Studio Owner & Dance Safe Alberta Founder) talks openly and honestly to dancers about fairness in the competitive world.
Credit: Neil Garcia, VNTG Photography

In the competitive dance world, there is a conversation that often happens behind closed doors, in private Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats, or on the long drive home after an event. It is a consistent conversation about fairness on stage in studio dance competitions. Every studio owner and parent wants to know that when their dancers take the stage, they are competing on a level playing field where hard work and genuine talent are the only things that determine the result. For every family, the integrity of the competitive environment is a core value that has somehow increasingly seems impossible to attain today with so many levels, inconsistencies, and that we do not or have not ever verified our competitor data at scale. 

Kim McSwain, who has spent over 30 years as a champion dancer and educator, has observed these dynamics from every angle of the industry. She recognizes that as the industry has grown, it has become increasingly important to support those studios that are doing everything right. When an industry grows quickly, it has to grow responsibly, and right now there is a collective opportunity to strengthen the accountability systems that ensure every dancer is placed in the correct category.

The Challenge of Self-Selected Categories

To understand the solution, one must first understand the operational challenges currently facing the industry. Competitive dance levels are largely self-selected by studios each season during the registration process. Without a unified verification layer, there is no independent confirmation of a dancer’s age, years of training, or previous competitive history.

Jamie Hodgins, Executive Director of the ICDR, explains that this reliance on the honor system can and historically has led to innumerable inconsistencies. When there is no central mechanism to validate levels or ages or history, it can create an environment where some dancers may inadvertently or purposefully be placed in categories that do not match their true skill level or experience. This often results in a “false presentation” of what a specific level, such as intermediate, should look like, which can be discouraging for dancers who are training in the appropriate bracket, while offering the studios that falsify this information an edge for doing the wrong thing. We would be naive to say that some studios are not entering ages or levels that give them an advantage. It’s a small part of the population but, why are we allowing this to ever happen in the first place?

Photo: Jamie Hodgins, ICDR Executive Director
Credit: Neil Garcia, VNTG Photography

For the “mid-level” studios—those with hundreds of dedicated students and families making real sacrifices—these inconsistencies can take a significant emotional toll. When dancers put in the work but see results that don’t align with the standard of the category, it can affect their confidence and commitment to the craft.

A Foundation of Legitimacy

The ICDR addresses these concerns at the infrastructure level through a shared danceID system that offers the industry a unique verified participant identity; a source of truth to rely on. This system introduces a shared standard that has existed in other youth athletic sectors for decades but is new to the world of dance.

With a verified danceID, a dancer’s age is confirmed and locked. This ensures that we start with ensuring every child is competing exactly at the age level they should be, providing “peace of mind” for parents and organizers alike. Level validation works in a similar way; by maintaining a private, verified record of a dancer history and by connecting registration systems that would never communicate with each other without ICDR sitting as an impartial registry in the middle; connecting them and other industry affiliates with a tool the industry can find value in at their own time since it’s entirely free. This is an overdue system that provides the “assurances” and “structure” that foster true industry respect.

This is not about creating bureaucracy; it is about providing the same basic legitimacy that hockey, gymnastics, and swim programs rely on to maintain the integrity of their sports. It is about making sure that every win is a “real” win because it was earned on a fair and transparent scoreboard.

Supporting the Honest Growth of Studios

For studio owners who prioritize integrity, the ICDR represents a tool that finally works in their favor. When ages are verified and levels are validated, the focus returns to great teaching and genuine results. This helps studios grow because the system finally rewards the values that led these owners to open their doors in the first place: hard work, honesty, and the development of life skills through dance.

The ICDR is currently offering verified danceIDs at no cost, to ensure that financial barriers do not prevent any studio or family from accessing these protections. This movement is already gaining significant momentum, having surpassed 35,000+ verifications in its pilot phase, supported by icons like Brian Friedman and Sophia Lucia.

The industry is ready for a safe, fair, and verified future. By moving toward a centralized source of truth, we can celebrate our industry’s athletes and artists with the confidence that the integrity of dance is being protected for the generations to come. Events and studios have been doing the best they can with the tools they have, but ICDR is offering a new tool to verify the competitors, studios, results, and progress we celebrate in dance. In working together, we’re restoring a lot of faith in the systems we are asked to rely on.