This installment will now take a slightly different tack from others, focusing here less on technique than a rather more general category of dance to which the Finnstep and foxtrot rhythms have led a handful of teams -- call it show, or theatrical ballroom. Performance-oriented, a little old-fashioned, and very American -- even if executed here by two Canadian couples and one Italian duo.
There might be no better point of reference for the style considered here than the enduring efforts of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, whose frequent on-screen partnership throughout the 1930s in particular essentially defined the classic dance film, courtesy of numbers like "Pick Yourself Up" from Swing Time:
While their film career brought their styles of popular performance dance and theatrically-inflected ballroom -- along with the debut or popularizing of several classic songs from composers like Berlin, Porter, and Gershwin -- to a far wider audience than stage alone ever could, they were also able to use film to their own advantage. While, of course, the closeness of camera and size of screen help foster both an intimacy and grandeur less easily accessed in live performance, Astaire took pains to instill one key component of live performance to the realm of filmed dance: the single-shot dance sequence, with cameras capturing one performance in full, cut-free and focused as far as possible on capturing the whole movement of bodies. This certainly, in its way, draws a bit of a link between Astaire & Rogers and the efforts of our ice dancers, though, sadly, most event cameras have failed to adhere to their own clean, seamless, dancers-in-full-view half of the bargain.
And in a more fortuitously direct segue to the short dance topic at hand, Rogers was actually introduced to a wide audience via the lead role in George & Ira Gershwin's 1930 debut of Girl Crazy, a production on which Astaire assisted in choreographic instruction. The show, of course, was later revised and revived in 1992 as Crazy for You, from which the music for Alexandra Paul & Mitch Islam's short dance was drawn.
It should be noted that while their program takes from a theatrical score, it does not draw from musical's book, and this 1992 Kennedy Center Honors performance of "I Got Rhythm" also points up the distinction between approaches -- the rousing and rustic group number and the typically elegant duet. But if the couple's interpretation does not derive from its strict source material, the extroversion of its expression and the outward-orientation of movement do point to its tackling a more theatrical than ballroom angle -- and an alternate category of source material might be considered. Take a look again at moments 0:54-1:03 and 2:19-2:30 in the short dance above and then take a gander at 1:00-1:15 in this particular number of legend:
Too, the choreographic aesthetic of Roberta's "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is a little like the midline writ large, while 1:28 offers a passing resemblance to the short dance's opening sequence, 1:35 to end pose, and other moments throughout simply suggesting a spiritual kinship.
Film and theatre have an interesting marriage where the short dance source material for two of the world's top ten teams is concerned. 42nd Street, the centerpiece of programs for both Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje and Anna Cappellini & Luca Lanotte, made its mark as a major theatrical musical in 1980, but drew as its inspiration the 1933 musical film of the same name (which, it may as well be noted, included among its cast Ginger Rogers). As befitting a Depression-era performance dance piece, tap plays a central stylistic role in both productions, though staging is a rather different story. Take this performance of the title number, featuring the cast of its 2001 revival:
Though a group number, its sensibility can be compared readily enough to Weaver & Poje's program, for which the team worked closely with actor and choreographer Geoffrey Tyler. Their take, while more both more abstract and condensed than a musical's number, interprets a storyline loosely based on the musical's themes and works in a few clever moments of tap-inspired ice work at 1:00 and variously from 2:10-2:25:
(As a further note, consider also lead Kate Levering's dress from the 2001 performance above and the number worn by Weaver in the team's first outing at the U.S. International Skating Classic.)
While the two are excellent actors, Cappellini & Lanotte's program, for its part, relies in movement terms more on a standard ice dance vernacular than a clear intent to play off of the theatrical vocabulary. Beginning at 2:45, however, there are a few key moments that tip the hat in their own way to tap:
Cappellini & Lanotte do draw things somewhat full circle with their choice in costumes, which evoke less a show-biz number and more the street scene that comprises the original film's take on "42nd Street" -- along with a gritty pre-Hays Code streak most definitely not apparent in either ice dance program:
Of course, any ice dance program is in its own way a small, often-filmed performance number, albeit one bound to requirements of motion and scored by panels of technical specialists and judges. But the program making overt reference to its own performance nature creates its own category and particular challenges for any team taking it on. An introverted couple can find success by making connection its own projected element; natural showmen can carry off moves that could otherwise seem gimmicky in translation. And in the case of a short dance with its strictly-prescribed necessities, such an approach can offer an alternative, almost self-reflective take on mandatory movement -- a miniature movie in the midst of competition.
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