19. Tango, Pt. 2: Freestyle

For this second entry in our tango series, we'll move away from the structure of the compulsory -- Argentine and Romantica -- tango and move ahead into its looser, choreographed free dance interpretations, along with a quick nod or two to the now-departed original dance.

And as the dance proper goes, perhaps the most useful analogy can be found with Tango Nuevo. The definition of what actually constitutes this concept is muddied -- it can also refer to a style of music used for the dance -- and it's blurry, too, how much this notion of a freer method of instruction, focused on improvisation and the "how" more than the "what" to dance, is itself a subgenre of the tango style. But holistically, it's a convenient framework for the idea of a more freeform take on the tango than that offered by the ballroom world or most traditional forms of Argentine tango, so we'll use this as our touchstone, and offer this "Oblivion" tango -- note the music -- from Claudia Miazzo and Jean Paul Padovani:


Non-compulsory tango in ice dance has most often come as an original dance, such as in the 1996-97 season. The form in that era still suggested some hybrid of ballroom tango attitude and crispness with recognizable Argentine foot play, as demonstrated in this program from Angelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov, including an enganche at 0:47 followed by a few extended sequences featuring high leg wraps, ganchos and boleos:



So in that alternately theatrical and ballroom-driven ice dance era of the late '90s, a dark, subtle free dance tango was its own kind of nuevo; as the product of young choreographer Igor Shpilband for U.S. champions Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow, it was also a sort of foreshadowing of the more freely dance-centered era to come with the institution of a new judging system in the mid-2000s.



It is in many ways a dramatic tango. But it's also a tango that pays much proper heed to its off-ice inspiration, in the kind of ways we've established that compulsories simply could not. Importantly, though frequently more open than permissible in even tango nuevo, its more drawn-out qualities tie it far more closely to the feel of an Argentine tango than the ballroom variant.

And as a leading coach in that IJS era, Shpilband would develop something of a reputation as a tango choreographer, the style proving a particular strength in his side of a creative partnership with Marina Zoueva. This fast-paced but highly intricate "Assassination Tango" for new seniors Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir -- a rare original dance in the 2006-07 season to completely bypass the (Tango Nuevo) music of Astor Piazzolla -- highlights some of those shifts away from the prior decade's more ballroom-crisp take on the style, and a general sense of Argentine feel:


And a tango free for students Meryl Davis and Charlie White in 2010-11 showed some strong contrasts with the stylings apparent in predecessor Punsalan and Swallow's own free; while the references to specific footwork and figures remain, this is a true Golden Age of IJS free, with speed and interesting transitions among the program's primary emphases. The free would develop more polish as the season continued, culminating in Davis and White's first world title, but this early outing, though raw, contains a bit more tango content:


In this post-original dance era, tangos have naturally appeared with slightly less frequency than in previous years, but as a free dance it's proven rather popular among top-ranked couples in the 2016-17 season. And one demonstration in particular pairs a fair degree of intricacy with reminders of the more dramatic, less rushed approach of Punsalan and Swallow's take -- choreographed, coincidentally, by Zoueva:


Next time: The Vintage Tango

18. Tango, Pt. 1: The Compulsories

The tango is so ingrained over nine decades of ice dance that in terms of sheer scope, it's too daunting to tackle as a single post. And so we'll begin instead with the fundamentals of tango on ice -- and progress from there.

It's lent its stylings to two senior compulsory patterns, arisen in five seasons for original dance usage -- and once as a secondary short dance rhythm, one of those topics we'll discuss at another time -- and otherwise functioned as the focus of countless more free dances. Of all specific partner dances, none can be more relied upon to appear annually than the tango.

The Argentine Tango compulsory, and its fellow far rarer Tango compulsory, date to that 1930s spell of compulsory development, as the two-decades-long craze for organized partner dance hit the ice. The Argentine tango proper had in fact become something of an international sensation in this period, making this a reasonably timely adaptation -- though, ironically, concurrent with the dance's temporary decline in its actual South American homeland.

The compulsory dance is meant to emulate its counterpart with "sinuous" quality, "skated with strong edges and considerable elan." It's tough to be sure which specific Argentine tango should best inform a skated pattern; certainly distinctions can be noted just between Argentine dance as a genuine street dance and the polished show style presented by professional champions Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone:



Yet another example would come via the fairly formalized competitive level of Argentine tango, though such examples as available on YouTube are hit and miss in terms of either video quality or video-friendly dynamism as compared with other types. Regardless, what tends to separate street from stage and floor is that more casual quality; the footplay and ganchos are present, but the hold is a bit looser, the pace a bit more spontaneous. This basic tutorial video covers some primary figures and steps; Wikipedia is useful for a more detailed overview of movements you'll easily recognize.

The Argentine compulsory is strikingly different from the dance by immediate means of its frequent open, non-face-to-face hold; a related lack of footwork interplay also signals the distinctions. But in sections like the interdependent steps from 0:54-0:56 and 1:28-1:31 in this skate from Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, there is some sense of tango's footwork:


But it's a very rare Argentine compulsory that includes a touch of in-pattern embellishment to reference the dance's footplay -- and fittingly, it comes in the last-ever skate of the pattern at an elite senior event:


Watch those feet at 0:53 and 1:28; you won't see those motions in other couples' presentations, and it's no accident here.

The other major tango compulsory, the Tango Romantica, was born of Ludmilla Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov's 1973-74 original set pattern dance. No video appears to exist of the dance as competed, but this very early 1980 compulsory outing from Natalia Linichuk and Gennedi Karponosov -- coached, as noted by commentator Debbi Wilkes at the top, by Romantica creator Elena Tchaikovskaia -- demonstrates how significantly the formal trappings of '70s and early '80s era ice dance suggests the feel of ballroom tango far more than Argentine:


While a multiple-compulsory-per-event need for versatile costuming helping to preserve this ballroom aspect well into the '90s, as demonstrated in 1992 and 1996, things began to shift in the IJS era. And by the compulsory's final outing at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, here skated by segment leaders Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, we can see how much the Argentine "feel" had slipped in despite no change to the pattern proper:


Next time: The Choreographed Tango

Special Topic: A Manifesto on Opinion

I have in the past year become more comfortable at publicly venturing opinions of a skating nature while continuing my work as a journalist of the sport. Though I never hope to hurt feelings -- and I will generally avoid offering negative views explicitly aimed at a team or choreographer on the basis purely of personal taste, and avoid strong opinion in event coverage, analysis and features unless identified as opinion-based -- there are a few reasons why I will defend the overall practice.

1. In traditional sports journalism, from basketball to tennis, it's certainly the norm, if not actively encouraged, to challenge play strategies or starting line-ups and rotations. Music and choreography are among skating, and especially ice dance's, versions of that.

2. And because I also cover skating from an aesthetic angle, room for subjective criticism is equally permissible. I believe strongly in use of music to its maximum effect and demonstrations of close skating unless demanded otherwise by a style; choreography that overlooks musical nuance in favor of lyrics and merely overt highlights or uses openness for no justified reason is something of which I have and will take a much dimmer view.

3. I will never posit that because I may not like a song or piece of choreography, that by default means the team in question should be scored less for the program in question, as though my preferences are in any way arbiters of objective quality. Last season, one of my least favorite free dances came from one of the teams I most respect; my taste judgment (and feeling, perhaps, that the material failed to provide a proper showcase -- more on that below) did not in any way mitigate their skill set or my belief in the marks they should merit based on what was demonstrated of their ability.

Likewise, as I've touched on previously, a team should never be scored for "spellbinding" quality over and against all other PCS criteria that are rooted more in reasonably objective technical assessments -- let alone receive any significant TES bump in such a scenario.

But I would venture to argue that music and choreography can help or hurt a team -- if judges are convinced a team is one-note, if choreography fails to highlight a team's best attributes as technicians or performers, if music doesn't present enough opportunity to showcase a team's dance ability. Improper choices can sometimes mean anything from deductions for a mismatched rhythm to feedback that demands a program overhaul. Ultimately, that's why music and choreography are open for criticism: they are part and parcel of outcome in this sport of skating.

17. Samba

Between next month's Rio Olympics and the recent announcement of the 2016-17 season's revisitation of the Latin short dance, it may finally be time to turn our eyes to that most complex of Latin dances: the samba.

A quick look at its overall history is useful and highlights certain of its historical complexities. Note that Brazilian samba has a somewhat march-like quality courtesy of its 2/4 tempo and includes both solo (like Samba no pé) and partnered (such as Samba de Gafieira) forms, quite distinct in both cases from its Latin ballroom namesake -- so tracing its connections to on-ice samba is an exercise, to say the least.

With their 2011-12 Latin short dance which includes a batucada percussion piece -- traditional for Brazilian samba -- Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat opted for a breezy vibe suggestive of a visit to Rio:


This samba no pé video presents the dance's basic steps, which we can note Pechalat and Bourzat representing in the separated samba sequence starting at 2:50 above. There's a very key signifier of ballroom samba also present at about 3:17 here -- and we'll talk about that next.

Ballroom samba tends to present the more frequent progenitor for the ice dance counterpart. As a particularly complex dance, there's no one-stop tutorial video for these figures, but this samba round from the WDSF PD World DanceSport Championship Latin gives a fair summary, provided one doesn't mind an endless loop of "Straight to Memphis," an experience in repetition that, though deliberate, is not unlike that of sitting through a Latin original or short dance at Worlds. Not particularly prominent in this round is the trademark samba roll, but as Pechalat and Bourzat demonstrated, it's a great way to shorthand the dance style given the limitations of footwork and certain multidirectional movement.

Ice dance offers one samba compulsory pattern, the Silver Samba, created in 1963 and last skated in international senior competition in 2000-01. More recently, it served as the base pattern for the 2014-15 junior short dance. Here it is performed by event winners Oksana Grishuk and Evgeni Platov at the 1996 World Championships:


Despite best efforts in the choreographed intro and outro, it will come as no surprise to regular readers that outside of the 2/4 time, there is exceedingly little to define the pattern itself as Latin, let alone samba -- though perhaps the slip steps seen at 0:58 and 1:28 are the smallest tip of the chapéu to solo samba footwork. Its use for a short dance permitted greater incorporation of concepts from the ballroom world, as in this program from Junior World champions Anna Yanovskaya and Sergey Mozgov.

Samba also served as an Original Set Pattern in 1971-72 and 1989-90, with a number of examples from the second season's dance available on YouTube. For those in search of Latin ballroom authenticity on ice, the 1980s and early '90s may not be your optimal destination. It's taking nothing away from the skating itself to note that the World Championship-winning "La Cucaracha" OSP of Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko is more Copa Cabana than Blackpool. But exceptions could emerge, and the team who ranked only third in this segment presented a dramatically truer -- and more tastefully subdued -- interpretation; check out Maya Usova and Alexander Zhulin's samba rolls at 0:36 and subsequently repeated with the second pattern pass:


And as introduced at top with Pechalat and Bourzat's routine, samba was also an optional secondary component of 2011-12's rhumba-based short dance, after having appeared in Latin Combination original dances in 1999-2000 and 2005-06. Another offering, from Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, does some of its own line-straddling between ballroom and Brazilian styles, but leans a bit more heavily in the former direction:


The hip action, highlighted at moments like 2:43, is among the stronger you'll get in a skated samba. To identify just a few figures, the samba-opening sequence beginning at 2:06 is essentially a shadow traveling volta; the change in hold from 2:46-2:48 is like a fragment of a promenade run while a similar series of turns starting at 2:16 feel a small bit like open rocks. The side-by-side footwork at 2:10, 2:44 and 2:58, in particular, are moments a bit more readily tied to samba no pé.

And despite the frequent recurrence of Latin in mandated original or compulsory programs, samba, of course, can also on occasion filter its way into a free dance, as it did for Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who also presented the style in a modified version of this number for the 2011-12 short dance a season later:


Hip action should be duly noted from program's opening.

Perhaps the best-known use of "Hip Hip Chin Chin" in the ballroom world belongs to this exhibition from Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko, which combines samba, cha cha, and a bit of freestyling, and it might not be amiss to suggest it may have had a little impact on certain components of the samba sections in Virtue and Moir's program:


But what's especially interesting about this particular ice dance interpretation is its utilization of in-hold figures, like the stationary samba walks beginning at 1:00. There are echoes of the original "Hip Hip Chin Chin" with a moment like the separation at 2:25 in the ballroom number as compared with the entry to the circular twizzles at 1:06 in Virtue and Moir's program, and the illustration of the song's title in both cases. It's the ability to integrate less familiar figures and elements with a free dance's demand for hold and continuous ice coverage, however, that particularly impresses. The opening steps are reminiscent of cruzados walks; watch for something like a traveling set of samba locks at 1:27 and 4:40. The actual diagonal step sequence -- and all those ice dance elements, like lifts, anathema to a competitive ballroom number -- can only embody so much of the samba syllabus, but it's scattered throughout two non-rumba segments' worth of transitions.

One of the best things to be said for the evolution of Latin (and many other dance genres) in ice dance is an expanding commitment to accuracy towards off-ice counterpart. While a championship round of 2011-12 and 2014-15's senior and/or junior short dances could be wearying in terms of musical repetition, there's something refreshing about even attempts at faithfulness, and even moreso about successful ones. The next Olympic year's rhumba-centered short dance could mean a retread of the last go-round, but can also open more opportunity for experimentation -- of an ultimately rather conventional sort.

Special Topic: An Open Letter to Ice Dance

Didier Gailhaguet, president of the French Ice Sports Federation and 2016 candidate for ISU president, made an illuminating observation on the state of ice dance in a recent New York Times article:

“I was up high in the arena the night of [Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron's] free dance, and for at least two minutes of their four-minute program, it was so quiet you could hear the wings of a fly beating [...] Even up where I was, I could hear the sound of their skates on the ice. That means what? That means something was happening with the audience, something we can’t quantify but something that we have to give value to in our sport."

An unquantifiable and deeply subjective element, one could reasonably argue, actually has very little place in the outcomes of athletic endeavor.

Journalism by its nature is intended to elucidate the factual. This is in principle; in practice we know it is far more complicated. But the process is muddled far more by reportage on a sport in which fact -- in the form of scoring and placements, what we’re told -- can bear a striking difference from what’s seen by the eye, what’s enumerated in the sport’s own rule book. The Program Components category is not an artistic "second mark": as written, it does a fair job quantifying those qualities which may and do contribute to a more aesthetically pleasing, but athletically rigorous, performance.

And the simple fact is that this is a sport. That is how it defines itself; that is why it remains in the Olympics despite threats in the more openly -- but no more -- political era pre-IJS. My work has spent much time uncovering the artistic elements within ice dance via the utilization of vocabulary from the realm of off-ice dance, a valid line of inquiry given emphases on compulsory patterns and short and original dances meant to reflect a dance style’s “authentic” nature. But that dance is meaningless without a foundation in skill -- trained ability, determined effort at complexity. That is what I ultimately prize, whether it seems to be rewarded or not. And that seems to be lessening in value among the ranks, including perhaps among some teams I’ve esteemed quite highly and quite publicly in previous seasons. It’s a tremendous disappointment to see what such pressures have meant for teams with such undervalued and fundamental strengths.

Skaters and their choreographers are certainly welcome to paint with all the colors of the wind. They should not be rewarded based on how deeply those colors make a judge or a certain number of audience members feel.

16. Charleston and 1920s Dance

The Charleston's history is a long and tangled one, with touch points including the possibility of a Renaissance-era predecessor in the Branle and its later development amidst the birth of jazz. This 1920s footage gives a good idea of the dance in its partnered -- and period-appropriate -- form:


A similar dance that came to overtake Charleston's popularity by the later 1920s was the Black Bottom, which shares the preceding dance's jazzy rhythms and loose limbs:


While the era has left behind little technical guidance for the solo form of either dance, this Charleston tutorial from Strictly Come Dancing pros Kevin Clifton and Karen Hauer nicely illustrates the dance's basics, once one moves past the video's first few seconds of exuberance:


Pay special attention to the attention called to arm positioning at 1:42 -- we'll see that in a transformed context later. Indeed, because so much emphasis in the floor form of these dances relies on a particular shuffle-styled step, twist and kick, references on the ice will tend to draw more from upper body or, perhaps, knee work.

In style terms, Charleston is one of those dances that's strictly bound to its time despite remaining familiar to later audiences (anomalies like Dancing With the Stars' "modern" Charlestons notwithstanding). It's danced on the vintage-loving swing and blues scene, and, in that 1920s-styled form, has also made its way to other dance competition shows like Britain's aforementioned Strictly Come Dancing:


So to ice dance, a best first place to turn might be the 2008-09 season. With an original dance featuring the designated theme of "Rhythms and Dances of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s," the 1920s vernacular proved a popular pick for many teams, including training mates Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and Meryl Davis and Charlie White:



But an even more committed approach, given a free dance's longer duration, came from Canadian then-juniors Brianna Delmaestro and Timothy Lum, whose 2014-15 medley is something of a master class in injecting the real thing into a competitive skating program. They would not be held back in translating Charleston's footwork to ice:


The stage is obviously set immediately, but attitude also carries throughout -- there's a loose, jazzy quality to their movements, keeping a Charleston pace even when choreography isn't strictly in style. But it is, in fact, more often than not.

With a free dance's sometime investment in showcasing a range of moods and moves, a 1920s dance has in a few cases presented itself as a component of a more diverse dance. Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue's Great Gatsby was discussed on this blog in a far different context, but Charleston does inform their diagonal step sequence.

Though a general period spirit is more pervasive in Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam's 2012-13 ragtime and jazz-heavy Legend of 1900 free dance, Charleston similarly does not comprise the program's bulk. One would, however, be hard-pressed to identify twizzles (starting at 2:42) that better embody the absolute character of those vernacular dances:


The arms in set #2 may look a little familiar, while the first transition might be worth comparing with 0:16-0:20 in the Black Bottom video.

Though Charleston's use in recent years has been amply demonstrated, we'll just close things out with a look at a very young team who exceeded their years with the musicality and performance quality of particularly the "Hot Honey Rag" conclusion of this 2014-15 Chicago free dance. Gwen Sletten and Elliot Verburg, your pairing will be missed: