Technique and performance skills: overview of the SQA Higher Dance technique area

Technique and performance skills is the performing area of SQA Higher Dance. It covers the technical skills that make movement accurate and safe, the performance skills that turn accurate movement into a communicated performance, and the performance component in which you dance two solos in contrasting styles. This page maps the area and shows how to study it.

What the technique area covers

This site presents the area as two answer pages.

Technical and performance skills. The full set of skills the SQA assesses. Technical skills are the physical controls (alignment, balance, control, coordination, flexibility, strength, stamina, extension, transfer of weight, gesture, accuracy). Performance skills are what carry the dance to an audience (timing and musicality, dynamics, spatial awareness, projection and focus, communication of intention, sense of style). At Higher you combine and contrast these across two styles.

The two-solo performance. The performance component itself: two tutor-choreographed solos in contrasting styles, each about one and a half to two minutes, assessed on the application and combination of technical and performance skills appropriate to each.

Why contrasting styles matter

The performance deliberately pairs two contrasting styles, such as ballet against contemporary, or jazz against lyrical. This tests something National 5 did not: your ability to adapt and combine skills rather than repeat one trained look. The same technical skill, such as transfer of weight, is used with different quality and dynamics in each style, and you must switch cleanly between the two and sustain quality across both pieces.

How to study the technique area

1. Learn the vocabulary precisely. Be able to define each technical and performance skill and give a clear effect, because the question paper rewards naming a skill and linking it to a result.
2. Apply skills to two styles. Practise describing how one skill differs between your two performance styles, since the contrast is where Higher marks live.
3. Rehearse, then refine. Secure the choreography of both solos, then work on the quality, projection and dynamics that lift the performance.
4. Connect to evaluation. Use the same skill vocabulary when you evaluate your own work, so your written answers match what you do in the studio.
5. Use SQA materials. The course specification, performance assessment task and past course reports show exactly what examiners reward.

For the official course specification

The SQA publishes the full Higher Dance course specification, the performance assessment task and past course reports at sqa.org.uk. Always revise from the current specification and SQA documents, because structure, durations and assessment are board-specific.