To look good while dancing, impress people or win competitions you don't need a lot of moves or tricks. Here are some tips that can help you become a complete dancer that were passed on to me by BBoy Vsan- Style Crax/ Underground Soul Cypher when I was in Stuttgart Germany in 2012, and was given to him by Junios brickhouse (Assassins Crew DC). This article is based on Breaking but the principles apply to all dance forms I believe.
Direction
While dancing never face one direction, especially as a bboy you don’t want to look like you are in a stage performance when you are in a cypher or battle. Play around with direction you look and face in the different levels i.e. top rock footwork, freezes.
You don’t necessarily have to look at you opponent all the time in a battle, you can look at the crowd and even look down as long as you mix it up.
Make sure you can do all your footwork both directions and practice everything you learn both ways.
Character
Playing with different characters/ expressions while dancing adds flava. This depends on the music, your mood, the situation or the environment. This is your where musicality comes into effect you can’t really throw down the same way you do it to one particular song than you do to another. So even while doing rehearsed sets you still have to add your own character to it.
Levels
Breaking the monotony by switching from toprock to footwork, floor work/ body glides makes you less predictable. Instead of going the conventional sequence of toprock- footwork- power- freeze, switch it up.
Surprise your opponent or the crowd. Add more sub levels like a mid- footwork and top rock position, movement in the air i.e. flips poses or freezes.
Posture
A good thing to do is record yourself dancing, your style looks different in reality to how it looks in your head.
Take a look at your top rock posture, it should look controlled but relaxed. The shoulders shouldn’t be too stiff and you need to be light on your feet and more on the balls of your feet while moving around.
The most important part of footwork posture is that your torso should be upright not leaning back or bending too much in front and restricting your movement. You can arch your back a bit and relax it.
When you do freezes the posture of your back and direction your feet point is important to make the freeze look good.
Each element has history to it, pay attention to the posture of the freeze, top rock, footwork and how it was created. Add your own style to it but knowing the origin helps play around with the move.
Speed
Doing super fast footwork doesn’t necessarily make your style dope. Playing around with your speed ads variety to the movement and allows you to play with beat or even catch the beat if you’re off. Variation in speed breaks the monotony of the movement.
A good was to practice speed is to practice the move really slow and pay attention to the each step, how the weight is transferred across your limbs. If you do this repeatedly then doing it faster is much easier and it looks cleaner.
Hips and whip are integral for speed. By throwing your hips around and outwards you take off the weight from under your hands and whipping your legs in six step initiate the momentum. Think of the helicopter move while doing the six step.
Remember whatever makes your movement more dynamic makes your look better. If you cover all these elements you don’t necessarily need lots of moves or tricks. And if you have the moves you definitely need to incorporate these elements to be well rounded.
The Last and Most Important Tip
Bad news! All of the above is useless if you're not listening to the music. A dancer should always be on beat and their movement should resonate with the music.
I believe that it should look like the music is in sync with your dance, not the other way around.
Hope you liked my two cents. Peace.