Do it subtly, do it skillfully, and do it in Spanish.
Watch closely as Maia and Alex Shibutani execute their first twizzle set starting at about 2:36 (embed should begin at the designated time) -- and count along with Perez Prado:
Why does this work? Because it's intricately interwoven with their skill at the element; a fail on the twizzles is a fail for the fun gambit. Sufficiently believing that they can execute is also a bold acknowledgment of their ability on something with which many another team has struggled. (In its sensitive timing, it's not unlike the twizzle passage in Virtue and Moir's Carmen, which required a to-the-millisecond finish to work dramatically -- one they consistently nailed.)
Far from a cheap trick to illustrate a lyric, this is clever play with high-level difficulty, and a great show of confidence.
Not content to remain relics of broader Step Sequences lessons in Latin, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir have unveiled a classic rock-scored r(h)umba short dance that neatly condenses a Dancesport syllabus including samba, cha cha, and rumba into one sub-three-minute program:
Let's begin.
There's far too much to fully unpack in the opening "Sympathy for the Devil" sequence, but a few highlights -- and hybridized transitions -- are worth noting. The rhythm bounce is a good baseline for understanding the flair injected throughout the dance's up-tempo bookending sections. Consider a bit of batucada to open, a moment at 0:42-0:43 that reads a little bit samba lock, a little bit plait. But at 0:44-0:48, meet the most obvious callback to floor samba: the natural roll. It's been utilized on ice more than once, but rarely in its face-to-face variant and for so extensive a time. It leads into the promenade run up to 0:52.
In their no-touch step sequence, a required stop beginning at 1:08 is really a sort of Cuban break/demonstration of great Latin posture, which swiftly segues into a modified criss-cross bota fogo followed at 1:13 by a tip of the hat to the solo spot voltas -- it is, in general, difficult to explicitly associate the program's myriad turning moments with specifically codified Latin turns, but there's a styling to the movement that at least presents a reasonable facsimile here; they are clearly skating turns for a Latin ballroom program, not for a hip hop or a waltz or a quickstep.
Given the packed and heavily mandated nature of the r(h)umba sequence set to "Hotel California" -- featuring a compulsory pattern and partial step sequence -- it's challenging to point to many specific rumba steps aside from, for example, the opening out at 2:13 or a skating-friendly twist on rope spinning at 2:09. However, a review of the syllabus and this showdance -- and therefore trick-friendly -- rumba do underline Virtue and Moir's easy and excellent hip action and include a few familiar transitions:
The final sequence to "Oye Como Va" presents a quick nod to cha cha, noted in something like the fan at 3:11. As conscientious an effort at translating floor movement to ice this program may be, it also shouldn't be mistaken for a purist exercise in Latin ballroom -- nor need it be. For teams with the skill, the restrictions of a technical ice dance program and the freedom to play across textbook styles is not cause to blame a genre, but opportunity to cleverly -- and masterfully -- adapt.
Back at the outset of the 2015-16 season, Step Sequences devoted some space to the newly-coined matter of choreoliteralism: moments of choreography that literally depict song lyrics. This concept could be further expanded to include forms of choreographic pantomime based on theme rather than vocals, such as the telephone calls and rope-skipping depicted in the 2016-17 programs of world champion Evgenia Medvedeva, though for purposes of simplicity, we'll continue to reserve the term for a less narrative-based literalism.
We did not outline last season's strikes in the choreoliteral vein, but those that did appear were also mostly less overt than those on offer in the previous year. However, the summer competitions have already revealed one program that presents multiple demonstrations: this "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" / "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" free dance from Dubreuil/Lauzon team Olivia Smart and Adrià Díaz:
When watching, consider these keywords:
man
train
load
looking out
As the season unfolds, we'll add any further acts of choreoliteralism to this post.
Ice dance began its life as "hand-in-hand skating," something separate from the "combined" skating also en vogue around the turn of the twentieth century, and analogized to waltz and polka by Captain J.H. Thomson in Norcliffe G. Thompson and F. Laura Cannan's Hand-in-hand Figure Skating (1896). Indeed, forms of the waltz and other simple in-hold dances were the first real ice dances, and this is no accident; concurrently, no social dance had greater stature than the waltz in Europe and North America of the late nineteenth century.
And as I hope this blog has amply suggested, these fortuitous turns -- so many ballroom styles paired with compulsory patterns of a related name -- were no sort of pure good fortune at all, but entirely deliberate. Ballroom dance expanded in scope and public success in the 1910s and '20s courtesy of popular performers like Vernon and Irene Castle, a shift in societal perceptions of moral propriety, and an overall turn towards social good times in the post-Great War era. The Blackpool Dance Festival, contributing to the process of codifying the ballroom dances, began in 1920, while the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing began formulating its ballroom syllabus in 1924. A decade later, under the auspices of the National Skating Association, British rinks would host ice dancing competitions with an eye towards developing and codifying new ice dance patterns like tangos, waltzes, foxtrot and quickstep. If it's a constant challenge to discern the link between today's ballroom figures and yesterday's compulsory steps, it's not to argue that this kinship with ballroom was ever meant to be forgotten or discarded.
But perhaps most telling of the relationship between disciplines in this foundational period is the gift figure skating left to ballroom in 1938: a scoring program still called the skating system. Though today such a link is more irrelevant to ice dance than a foxtrot is to Dancesport, it's worthy of recall.
Ice dance has developed far beyond its initial strict requirements of hold and close skating, the more staid ballroom trappings of its first decades as a world-contested discipline. But in a scored, competitive system -- and in the absence of alternative dance standards to draw upon, like ballet's strict and clear-cut steps and demands of technique -- ice dance must either find a wholly new form of legitimately difficult, objectively assessed separated movements upon which to base itself as a discipline, or accept its roots as a couples' discipline, one that sets itself apart from pairs by virtue of the literal partner connection.
Given the ever-changing and ever-curious tweaks to the discipline's rules and syllabus on a near annual basis, some small heed to history -- and a form of objective fact no matter how scored -- seems essential.
If ice dance tangos can be ballroom and Argentine, compulsory, short-form or freestyle, they can also take their cues from a wholly other source: history. More than seems to be the case with other styles, like waltz or the Latin dances, tango seems to inspire choreographers and skaters to a vintage tribute.
Our source today is the tango that first developed in North America and Western Europe in the 1910s and '20s. In the wake of its introduction by Vernon and Irene Castle, it would be popularized through Rudolph Valentino's performance of an extremely stylized and less-than-authentic tango in 1921's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, set here to that utmost staple of tango, 1917's "La Cumparsita" by Uruguayan musician Gerardo Matos Rodriguez:
Some have observed that this performance is really more of an apache dance, but the identification of it as a tango, as performed by rising star Valentino, was sufficient to raise the dance’s profile further. And so the tango continued along its merry standardized way as a social dance, one performed to contemporary popular music, one increasingly-distanced from its Argentinian roots -- as suggested by this quite staid 1928 film, courtesy of British Pathé:
As demonstrated by Valentino and partner, the dance can have those slinky, staccato steps, but can also take on a livelier, more flirtatious character. It's like the early stage behavior cheekily ascribed to the American Tango style: happy, romantic, and only vaguely uneasy around the other. (Worth noting that the prospect of revisiting a Charleston-era version of tango is not alien to the ballroom world, as demonstrated in this show dance.)
But it's this ur-version of the tango that informed Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's 2010-11 short dance. The twoeach described the piece as having a “Great Gatsby era feel.” But here's another twist from the other tangos we've discussed: the program, as required for that season's short dance, was actually constructed around the Golden Waltz pattern.
So with that bit of technical exposition out of the way, let’s get to the root of those “Gatsby era” allusions:
The tango music is indeed of era -- 1928's "Schenkst Du Beim Tango Mir Dein Herz" -- and while we've seen other takes on tango from Virtue and Moir, they have typically come in the form of something more closely related to the Argentine tango, with the force and passion associated. And this is key: we know that they knew, and that choreographer Marina Zoueva knew, how to craft a tango. The choices made here, avoiding much in the way of traditional enganches and boleos, is intentional. Instead, they've taken things in a rather more unusual direction, one which offers up a stagier sort of styling. Where the waltz is a true moment of connection, the tango framing is a narrative device which shares some of the propriety of that 1928 interpretation; there is a self-consciousness that's deliberate, and it feels in line with a sense of embodying a sort of play-acting old-fashioned tango dance: it's an imported, vaguely exotic style adapted for American (and European) society, popularized by an actor. The program's point of reference is a novel. It's far easier to see a reflection of that old British film footage than, say, some demonstration from a South American club.
But Virtue and Moir weren't the only couple to take up the vintage-imbued wango challenge that year, nor even the only Canadians. And this aesthetically vintage tango for Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam offers up quite a reverse interpretation; instead of setting apart tango as a form of dance-driven plot device, it instead functions as dominant theme, with the waltz itself subsumed by the other dance's character courtesy of a 3/4-time arrangement of "La Cumparsita":
"A Los Amigos," the primary music selection, is a contemporary tango composition, but one that blends well with the traditional piece; tango movement at 1:18 and 2:26 is used to transition into and out of the Golden Waltz and obviously comprises the in-hold segments that sandwich that Golden Waltz. The dance itself is more familiarly Argentine than Virtue and Moir's, but neither was this an entirely foreign notion even in the Gatsby era:
The 1920s rendition may lack the more complex footplay of the style's later twentieth century re-emergence, but there are still elements worth noting for comparison here, like a demonstrably dramatic opening and an early form of the assisted leap Paul executes at 3:26 in the skating performance, seen here at 1:23 -- while the skated leap could also be considered a more refined and foot-intricate form of the salto at 1:06 in Valentino's dance.
And this past season, though music selection ("Con Buena Onda") was entirely modern, costuming -- reminiscent of this 1930 Louise Brooks clip -- suggested another spin on a mid-century sort of vintage for Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier in a tango free dance:
There are nods as expected to Argentine tango movement, such as the pasadas at 2:21 and 2:51 and the sequence from 3:18-3:25, but more central in connecting this dance to vintage tango is its dramatic nature. Tricks like Gilles' pass through Poirier's legs at 2:00 are not tango-traditional, but do contribute to a theatrical conceit, while the opening sequence could remind one of the highly stylized nature of the apache approach.
Given the recent welcome announcement of Tango Romantica- and Argentine Tango-based short dances for the 2018-19 season, our series on skated tango should offer a few relevant previews of routes teams will take; should the secondary rhythm be (as presently indicated) even more wide-ranging than those on offer for couples in that 2010-11 Golden Waltz season, the chance of a more creative take -- tango as story, tango as historical artifact -- is even more likely. But the most pressing question of all: will that bold couple, too, be Canadian? The season will tell.
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:
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:
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.
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 Sambade 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.
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.
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 highlighted 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. Note also its fast, jazzy pace, with Charleston dances typically calling for music of 200-300 BPM, often featuring a syncopated rhythm.
Charleston today is danced on the vintage-loving swing and blues scene, categorized into strict 1920s and Lindy-based styles, and Dancing With the Stars has also presented the occasional "modern"Charleston. However, in the popular imagination -- including among ice dance choreographers and fans -- it's a dance that's strictly bound to its time. In that 1920s-styled form, it's made its way to other dance competition shows, like Britain's aforementioned Strictly Come Dancing:
For 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 free dances sometimes focused more on showcasing a range of moods and moves, 1920s dance style has occasionally appeared as a component within a more eclectic program. 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:
It's possible to argue that no dance genre more seriously underpins ice dance than ballet. For as much as the discipline's social and competitive roots align with those of ballroom dance, ballet is a conventional element of figure skating education as a whole. Lines, general carriage and upper body movement translate fairly fluidly from the floor to the ice.
It's also then an interesting exercise to consider how ballet has itself been directly referenced within ice dance -- and examples might be less prevalent than expected. Because the idea of ballet, especially in its more contemporary form -- port de bras, positioning, a certain perceived quality of soft lyricism -- is so utterly ingrained, it would be too facile to argue that lyrical ice dance programs are themselves somehow demonstrations of ballet. Ballet as a form of dance on floor -- neoclassical, contemporary, modern, romantic -- is basically united by a commitment at base to a shared language of technique. For this writer, then, what might truly define ballet on ice would be a program as crafted by a choreographer with a pure understanding of ballet technique, executed by skaters with above-average knowledge and comfort with said technique. This definition makes actual on-ice ballet very much the exception rather than rule.
With that said, the idea of a ballet program has been an especially popular one in this season of the waltz short dance -- ballet scores providing excellent examples of the fast-tempoed waltz necessary to the Ravensburger, along with well-matched marches and polkas appropriate to the short dance's secondary rhythm. Let's take a look at three teams who committed to three very different approaches to the idea of a ballet program -- with a range of outcomes as faith to a genre goes.
With a short dance set to -- but not portraying -- selections from John Lanchbery's Tales of Beatrix Potter ballet score, Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam also tackled the year's most dedicated attempt at classical ballet on ice. The couple's efforts were detailed more thoroughly in this Two for the Ice article, but highlight an absolute interest in technical reference, from the skaters' -- especially Paul's -- basis in off-ice ballet and the input of ballet instructor Daria Kruszel:
Sequences such as 0:48-56, 1:21-24 and 2:52-55 clearly intend to reference opening bows, pirouettes and chaînés along with the cabrioles and temps leves touched upon in the article, and are executed well, given the limitations of on-ice action; Paul's foundations are obvious.
While Maia and Alex Shibutani's Coppelia is inspired by Petipa's popular work, ballet here serves as a narrative touchstone:
Although the two worked with ballet performers, including Cheryl Yeager and Alex Wong, there's really no strong technical comparison to be drawn in this program; program choice here is based in story more than classical movement. Similarly, musical selections are matched to the waltz and march rhythms and patterns, not the story strictly presented in the ballet's counterpart moments. But even with that caveat, Swanhilda's dance, as performed by the Royal Ballet in 2000, makes a most interesting companion to the specifics of Maia's masterful (and deeply committed) performance as the dancer-as-doll -- including at 1:54:
Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker tackled an especially beloved ballet in their decision to draw from The Nutcracker's "Waltz of the Flowers" and "Dance of the Parents." In one program-focused interview this fall, Hawayek and Baker noted that their approach to ballet in this program was more suggestive than literal, with the team -- neither partner heavily trained in the style -- taking a primary role in choreography and coach Anjelika Krylova bringing in her own understanding:
Nods to the ballet concept are evident in moments like the arabesque penchées at 0:36 and 0:42 along with the small jeté lift at 1:09, but the dance, as a whole, is more ice dance waltz and polka with a twist. The hybrid approach, however, is also delivered with considerable charm and poses some useful challenges for the couple's development.
As a useful point of technical contrast, Moscow Ballet presents a partnered take on the "Waltz of the Flowers":
(But here, too, is the parents' dance, as danced by the Royal Opera Ballet, with a courtly dance that is indeed reflected by the ice dancers taking it on.)
But perhaps the most novel balletic concept within ice dance has been the purest. While the idea of the barre played a role in this 1986 exhibition from Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took it to a much more literal level in this 2008 number:
We open with stretches and plies, a modified battement with arms moving through the positions -- essentially, a fairly spot-on condensed ice version of a barre exercise, such as this from the London Russian Ballet School:
It is, of course, another case where faithfulness to a style comes as no surprise given particularly the off-ice background for Virtue, famously offered a spot in Canada's National Ballet School after youthful studies. Moir's solo turn at 1:20-33 demonstrates an appropriate lightness of movement, but Virtue's subsequent sequence from 1:34-41 highlights more in the way of technique, from ballonnés to a few concluding chaînés. The ensuing pas de deux is really a step sequence -- but fluidly connected courtesy of that marriage of dance and skating skill.
For all the classical ballet references found in the current ice dance era -- Meryl Davis and Charlie White's 2012-13 Giselle short dance another inspired by a well-established work -- less obvious have been demonstrations of more modern ballet in a clearly distinct form (though Virtue and Moir's work with ballet and modern dance teacher and choreographer Jennifer Swan might serve as an example). But as lyrical becomes especially prevalent on the competitive scene, a more technically rigorous take, combined with excellence of skating technique, may present itself -- especially if more outside creative forces get involved.
In its second installment, long ago at the outset of the 2012-13 season, Step Sequences explored the hitherto relatively unexplored territory of hip-hop on ice. At this time, it was a permitted supplementary rhythm for juniors, accompanying a Blues pattern-based short dance, and examples of its other use were few and far between.
In more recent seasons, hip-hop has taken on a new life at the senior level in capacities both competitive and show, and will be on offer as a supplemental rhythm for senior and, again, junior dancers in next season's Midnight Blues/Blues short dances. We'll take a look at those outings and revisit the off-ice world as well -- recalling still that all on-ice renditions of the genre are essentially adaptations of lyrical or studio hip hop, with an obvious emphasis on that category's basis in choreography rather than improvisation, and its utilization of heavy-hitting isolations and more grounded, rounded movement as its defining elements.
For their 2014-15 free dance to pieces from the soundtrack of 2013's The Great Gatsby, Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue explored a range of rhythms and accompanying dance styles. Of concern here is their approach to Beyoncé and André 3000's "Back to Black" -- seen from 1:58 to 3:00:
Although this blog has very recently made a point regarding overuse of choreoliteralism, the incorporation of choreographic gesturing within the difficult twizzle sequence is a nice, and technically tricky, touch, obviously reminiscent of the lyrical hip hop approach ("and your tears dry" at 2:25-27). While the couple have excellent flow, carefully incorporated upper body isolations mean this movement actually doesn't pose significant trouble to their interpretation -- though it really wraps at 2:44, with the subsequent transition movement returning to a more general skating vocabulary.
While the choreography is unrelated, it might be useful to take a look at choreographer Miguel Antonio's "Back in Black" studio piece as a complement; it is also interesting, however, as a demonstration of the genuine closeness that exists between commercial hip-hop and a fellow trained genre like jazz. Many of the harder hit moments are less grounded and staccato than snappy -- a product of choreography or dancer?
Also last year, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir tried their hand with an exhibition to Usher's "Good Kisser," completed with the aid of hip-hop instructor and choreographer Samuel Chouinard in addition to choreographer Marie-France Dubreuil:
Interestingly, this number happened to come on the heels of a very popular Dave Scott hip-hop routine from So You Think You Can Dance's eleventh season in 2014, featuring Tanisha Belknap and Rudy Abreu:
While it's difficult for skaters like Virtue and Moir to wholly adapt their usual fluid movement to the more staccato aspects of hip hop, they do some solid work in the stand-still sequences here, with Moir particularly strong; where some hip-hop essence is lost, of course, is again in the many moments of greater ice coverage. But Dave Scott's routine, though a strong entry to Dance's body of hip-hop work, itself relies to an apparent degree on the other-genre strengths of its two dancers -- one a heavily cross-trained contestant who classified herself as a ballroom dancer, the other a cross-trained contemporary dancer.
And Dubreuil students Kayla Charky and Simon Dazé, junior competitors for Canada, also tackle a hip-hop segment in their largely classic R&B-based 2015-16 free dance to "Ain't No Sunshine," "Try a Little Tenderness" and "Otis." While Kanye and Jay-Z's track drops in at the 3:08 mark, the hip-hop derived movement only enters at 3:34, stretching for a 15-second segment. Choreographically, the intent is clear, though execution is clearly young -- though also performed here at a July event:
What shall the 2016-17 season bring? Step Sequences waits in eager anticipation for the brave souls who opt to take the road less traveled.
Choreoliteralism is not a dance genre, per se, though it may certainly correlate with the off-ice category of lyrical dance, in its primary meaning -- a balletic/jazz-rooted form illustrating lyrics equal to or over melodic line and rhythm. In other words, lyrical dance relies on a fairly literal depiction of a song's lyrics. On the ice, lyrical has primarily come to be used to refer to any soft, often romantic program style drawing on ballet-influenced upper body shape and line and, ironically, usually skated to instrumentals. Examples in the current free dance era alone are numerous; Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's 2009-10 Mahler, Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker's 2013-14 Amelie and Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron's 2014-15 Mozart all can be classed under this umbrella (while the latter team's free was inspired by a contemporary ballet, on-ice movement in its limitations and the primary emphasis on emotionalism over refinement would compel me to consider the piece more lyrical than ballet, versus a program clearly drawing on recognized elements of ballet technique).
But all of that is to miss the point, which is the true concept of "lyrical" dance in skating form. And here we draw a distinction between choreoliteralism and narrative movement. A good program can tell a story through abstract gesture. Virtue and Moir's Carmen utilized modern dance language to tell a reasonably clear-cut story; Hawayek and Baker's new Theory of Everything free plainly depicts Stephen Hawking's battle with ALS without sacrificing the integrity of a contemporary dance approach. No, what we talk about when we talk about choreoliteralism is something more on-the-nose.
Christopher Dean, in the 2011-12 season, presented two shining examples of the concept. Watch and listen, here, how Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier start their "Pure Imagination" free dance:
Gilles' brother Todd, who had some success in prior partnerships with Trina Pratt and Jane Summersett, teamed for that same season with Emily Samuelson, herself an accomplished skater with Evan Bates. The pairing would be short-lived, but they did have the opportunity to skate this Dean creation to a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" -- a lyric of key inspiration:
It's worth acknowledging that sometimes this literal approach can be taken without lyrics, as such -- see Dmitri Soloviev lip-sync a bird's cry, or Nikita Katsalapov enact Sam's shooting while a V/O dialogue track shares Elena-as-Molly's distress. But these are the extravagant cases, and further pursuit may lead us down an unwanted road of many a most unfortunate death on ice. We'll return our primary focus to that smaller concern, those moments which do not come in the service of conveying a specific storyline through overt gesture (an approach which can itself be fraught with choreography by pantomime), but rather a simple lyric.
Choreoliteralism has taken on a new vogue within the work of Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon. An early non-competitive effort from the duo more abstractly hinted at this approach, with Virtue and Moir's 2010 "I Want to Hold Your Hand" show program highlighting a variety of hand-to-hand motions. As full-time coaches and competitive choreographers, the duo, and Dubreuil in particular, have shown a special interest in lyrical material by its skating definition, perhaps making the transition towards more literally lyrical moments this season a logical one.
While the element is subtle enough in itself, costuming turns a key moment in Elisabeth Paradis and François-Xavier Ouellette's free dance to Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" into a great demonstration of the choreoliteral lift:
Meanwhile, reference to birds and wings -- to say nothing of reaching arms -- translates clearly in Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam's "Where Is It Written?" free:
But 2015's choreoliteral trend is not confined to the rink at Gadbois, as Gilles and Poirier, in a short dance made this time by coaches Carol Lane and Juris Razgulajevs, can attest:
Outside of the competitive realm, an additional rather interesting contribution to our sample comes from a non-skating choreographer -- a recent creation by Dancing With the Stars ballroom pro Sharna Burgess for Meryl Davis and Charlie White. This piece to Florence + the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" contains not one example of choreoliteralism -- nay, the practice abounds; identify a verb and see it realized:
Among specific moments, it's difficult to see given the angle in this video, but in a recording of their latest performance at Rockefeller Center, Davis nicely illustrates the concept of being "hit" by happiness. Kisses are blown at 1:47; the duo runs at 2:16. It is, however, worth acknowledging that Burgess's Dancing With the Stars work tends to take a more musically-based approach.
Literal interpretation of lyrics is certainly practiced outside the world of strictly lyrical dance, as in Bollywood, for one, with its marriage of theatre and dance, as well as Western musical theatre to an extent, as contemporary choreographer Mia Michaels -- uncomfortable with literal lyrical choreo in her usual field -- recognized when adapting herself to Broadway's environs. Of course, taken too far, the choreoliteral practice also becomes easy fodder for humor, as in, say, Saturday Night Live's series of "DeMarco Brothers" sketches in the early 2000s, featuring a pair of aspiring back-up dancers who thoroughly acted out lyrics to Bon Jovi or Britney Spears songs in a bid to obtain employment with such musical idols.
Prior to the introduction of lyric vocals in the non-dance disciplines of skating, a common criticism leveled against the suggested use of such was indeed the risk of programs becoming a game of charades more than an interpretation of pure music, an interesting fear when, given the nature of its elements and timing, dance is arguably the more musically sensitive of the disciplines. But this concern (one not yet significantly borne out in singles or pairs) also points to a simply different understanding in skating than in dance of lyrics' purpose; what can be a point of dispute among some in the vast and various world of dance off the ice is somewhat more limited in skating, with existing concerns about the line between kitsch and art alongside considerable limitations upon movement. A dancer can use full body to express music and lyric alike; a skater with less range of motion may be reduced to the odd arm gesture or punning element, a moment that draws attention to itself for its sheer outlier status.
But perhaps the fundamental fear is one not quite touched upon, and it's one of sheer difficulty: creating and executing movement to provided words is simply easier than creating and executing movement rooted in the textures and nuances of any piece of music, instrumental or vocal. Words are obvious to any choreographer familiar with a language; musical subtleties are sometimes not. A given gesture may be challenging in its own right to deliver, but is it fundamentally more challenging than the act of moving with full awareness of subtle rhythmic and melodic shifts through any live performance's pitfalls?
Choreoliteralism is, ultimately, one possible approach for the skating choreographer, typically one facet of a larger, more general tack. Can a creative concept be an objective wrong? Provided especially that it fulfills all requirements for the competitive program, no. But can it prove a disappointment, especially when applied to those teams with genuine musical ability? For this writer, yes.
At last, an overdue look at this year's senior compulsory pattern, the Paso Doble, a style which, more than others from the ballroom family, has had some unexpected success -- and challenge where less noted -- in its translation to icy life.
While intimately associated with Spanish culture, namely its bullfighting tradition, Paso Doble as dance actually originated in France as a sort of military march and later gained full steam as a style in that same country in the 1920s and '30s. The dramatic nature of its character meant it developed primarily as an exhibition dance more than social, and it's exceedingly challenging to locate examples of Paso Doble as known in the west that are not a demonstration of the Latin ballroom dance, although another folkish strain exists in countries such as the Philippines. This video featuring Christoph Kies and Blanca Ribas Turón performing to a song most closely bound with the Paso (and not unfamiliar to skating fans), "España Cañi," is a ballroom offering with some obvious touches of the dance's flamenco and gypsy influences; the song title, in fact, means "Gypsy Spain."
Meanwhile, this instructional series, designated for the bronze, silver and gold international levels of the dance, provides an exceptionally useful rundown of its figures:
It's likely that no ice dance Paso Doble is better known and remembered than Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's 1983-84 Original Set Pattern dance, made famous as part of their Olympic gold-winning performance:
The team quite obviously follows one particular key tenet of Paso -- characterization, here with Dean embodying the matador in machismo attitude and Torvill his cape. (Dean, in choreographing this season's Paso Doble short dance for Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, would revisit the concept.) In other senses, however, the actual Paso influence is rather difficult to discern; the interplay between dancers is considerably minimized in Torvill's more passively choreographed role as cape, while the floor Paso's touches of flamenco styling evident in arm gesture, stance and general full body expression are also minimal. Notably, the music used here -- Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capriccio Espagnol" -- is in 6/8 time, versus Paso's 2/4 rhythm. Because the couple spend virtually no time in face-to-face hold, comparison to Paso figures is challenging, though a variant on a traveling spin can be noted at moments like 0:51-0:55, while touches of separation might be present in execution of certain turns.
In a surprising turn of events for this blog, however, a more direct tribute to ballroom Paso can be seen in the 1938 compulsory pattern that bears its name, performed in this clip by Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin at their victorious 2009 World Championships:
The tango hold is already an improvement over many a killian-heavy compulsory we've examined here, but also clearly links the dance across disciplines. While any attempted nod at the figures is very general at best, the upright frame demanded of Paso on the floor is especially emphasized here in the slip steps (serving this season as part of the short dance's first key point); hand flourish too is encouraged in the moments directly following those steps, first at 0:47 and 0:50 here, lending to more obvious Paso character.
While many of this season's short dances draw more overtly on flamenco than Paso -- though this, too, can work to enhance a Paso display, as suggested above -- a few are more ballroom-driven in nature, such as that from Grand Prix Final champions Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje. The cape element in Weaver and Poje's dance is more abstracted along the lines of ballroom's approach, with sequences like those from 2:33-2:36 and 2:43-2:45 rather akin to loose interpretations of a caping walk. The posing from 2:59-3:04, too, reflects the combative dynamic often demonstrated in performance:
With ice dance analysis concluded for now, I'll leave with this showdance interpretation of Paso from Pavlo Barsuk and Anna Trebunskaya, relying heavily on the Latin vocabulary but offering a little more by way of comparison to the skating realm with its continuous movement and incorporation of non-permissible elements like the concluding lift:
Where foxtrot meets ice, the primary takeaway should be less on specific steps or even hold or frame, and more on a general rhythmic quality; the dance is marked by its slow-slow-quick-quick pattern, creating a sense of rise and fall that, when done well, can be reflected in a program.
What's particularly of note where the foxtrot is concerned is its two strands of history. While today it's classified as a standard ballroom dance, it originated as a product of the popular successes of vaudeville -- attributed in its barest form to namesake showman Harry Fox -- and performance ballroom exemplified by Vernon and Irene Castle, trendsetters of the gradually emerging Jazz Age (seen here performing their own namesake Castle Walk). The dance that began as an emblem of the ragtime era would, however, with the passage of a little time and a migration overseas, become refined in that ballroom-crazed period of 1930s Britain that also saw the development of the foundational compulsory ice dances -- including, but naturally, the foxtrot, demonstrated here. This new "slow foxtrot" essentially supplanted the jazzier social style from which it originated, rendering the dance somewhat more staid in perception than is necessarily true to its essential spirit and fairly adaptable rhythm.
To establish some footing in what's currently understood by a social but still fairly formalized approach to foxtrot, this tutorial provides a quick and clear visual breakdown of the basics:
Confusing matters slightly, slow foxtrot may be synonymous with foxtrot overall -- as separate from quickstep, originally a variant of the dance -- or may refer to a specific subgenre of foxtrot. The ISU, for its part, has distinguished between the two, and while a quicker-paced foxtrot ruled the day this season and in others (as demonstrated in 2001 by Marina Anissina & Gwendal Peizerat) most original dances from the 2004-05 season utilized the slow rhythm, including -- and pay attention -- this one from then-juniors (and national seniors) Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, a particularly solid demonstration of hold-heavy foxtrot.
And from the history page linked above, let's also take a moment to note the described "theatricality" of an American take on the form -- and that the couples covered in the previous entry here all utilized a foxtrot rhythm in their season SDs.
And while most teams this past season did incorporate the foxtrot, as suggested by those theatrical examples and many others, fewer programs focused in on a more traditional ballroom-oriented interpretation. This dance from Maia & Alex Shibutani is, however, one of the clearer, playing to the team's strengths:
The slow-slow-quick-quick pattern is discernible here, especially at the top of each foxtrot segment; the choreography from 0:34-0:38 is a little like a promenade. The sense of lilt is apparent in their second foxtrot section particularly, with a notion of rise and fall, if less of sway.
But least common of all was reference to foxtrot's initial roots, and to explore those, let's first set the stage with a look at the real thing in the 1920s and 1930s. The comparison is instructive; while the 1920s clip retains a jazzy sensibility, that of the 1930s suggests a smoother, more standard ballroom interpretation:
A few teams elected to call back to that early-mid-century feel, though in varying degrees of faithfulness to actual dance movement. The Charleston-inspired short dance from Danielle O'Brien and Gregory Merriman nicely utilizes its middle foxtrot rhythm (beginning at 1:55) in terms of bounce and sway, though the openness of hold outside of the midline step sequence distances it from its floor forebear:
And after their youthful take on the ballroom-based slow foxtrot, Virtue and Moir elected to travel the jazz club route with this Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong program, which wraps its quickstep middle with two foxtrot sections:
Again, the concern is more general feeling than specific translation, but the in-hold moments present something like a heightened conception of the real thing, performance more than a direct presentation, particularly with several early sequences, and the bulk of the "Cheek to Cheek" section, marked by rise and fall but also a quite nonstandard degree of flash. But compare also the interplay of the no-touch midline step sequence to the responsive steps of the traditional dance, with the step-back/step-forward slow-quick rhythm suggested a bit by the patterns and rhythms carved out as one partner seems to move more in reaction to the other than out of any simple choreographic scheme. The attitude of reaction and response is what grounds the rise and fall here.
Among the spectrum of fundamental dance styles, foxtrot poses more difficulty than most in its move to the ice -- its composition so rooted in actions so incompatible with both the physics of skating and the requirements of competition that isolated elements and rhythms must take precedence here. But that flexibility of tempo and rhythm also makes its application as a secondary rhythm -- an addition to a quickstep or waltz or other standard ballroom form -- certainly points to its overwhelming popularity of use. The result, though, is a style that can lose its identity in ice dance form; those references, then, to its primary roots are all the more unique.
The Finnstep, paired with this season's accompanying rhythms, lends itself to a nice range of interpretive approaches, from standard ballroom to social swing or Charleston. Its tempo requirements, as well as the perceived character of the dance, also tend towards more traditional or standard musical selections -- and, in a few cases, selections from the great American theatrical songbook.
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.
The quickstep compulsory, like most compulsories of its era, found it appropriate to substitute the face-to-face dance hold of its floor inspiration with kilian. Where the dance calls for a standard 4/4 time signature, the compulsory is in 2/4 time, making the task of music selection a little more challenging than simply seeking out any designated Standard Quickstep CD. This technical step-by-step video breakdown of the quickstep, courtesy of the ISU, is a useful visual resource and, paired with this short lesson on Standard quickstep, reveals indeed very little overlap at all between genres: while a case can be made for straightness of frame, there is no readily apparent commonality between steps or general rhythm and pattern of movement. This is, in essence, another case of the r(h)umba.
Nevertheless, the dance's emphasis on quick, light movement is at least suggested in strong compulsory performances, such as this first-place rendition from Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat at the 2002 Olympics:
And, as the foundation of this season's junior short dance, choreographers and teams have made an effort to surround the perhaps questionable pattern with footwork and holds more reflective of the heritage, as in, for one very successful example, this from Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker:
But now that it's been established what quickstep is not, it might be instructive to take a little more time to consider what it is. The style is of the Jazz Age, having developed from the foxtrot -- a quicker-paced version of such -- as well as the Charleston and other more specific vernacular dances of the day. Some historical detail is offered here, while this page provides a solid breakdown of the style from a technical angle. Speaking in the most general sense, the dance will be marked by the pace and patterns of its footwork, including elements like hops, runs, and kicks, and a basis in syncopation -- another legacy of its jazz heritage.
This demonstration of both basic and advanced patterns is a useful reference, particularly the advanced pattern beginning at 1:20:
While truer quickstep elements have been incorporated into programs using a quickstep rhythm (see, for example, much of 3:33 and on in this 2011 free dance from Maia & Alex Shibutani), for the general purposes of ice dance, a far better comparison can be drawn between real quickstep and the compulsory pattern that in 2008 supplanted its skating counterpart version for senior dancers: the Finnstep, also the foundation of this season's senior short dance. Created as Finland's Susanna Rahkamo & Petri Kokko's 1994-95 Original Set Pattern dance, it is far more boisterous and open than either a compulsory or Standard quickstep, but also carries through some degree more of the latter's spirit and technical nuance:
Consider, for example, the very familiar sequence from about 0:43 through 0:55 alongside the run from 1:46 through 1:52 in the above quickstep video. The holds vary, the quickstep incorporates more turn, but the approach of the footwork is far more comparable. What is attempted on ice with the Finnstep's deliberate hops and short steps versus more sustained blade runs can much more readily be perceived as an authentic attempt at translating quickstep.
This season's short dance and its multiple manifestations will be explored in greater depth with the next few entries here, as its optional paired rhythms -- foxtrot, Charleston, and swing -- are considered along with thematic and stylistic subgenres utilized throughout certain programs.
With Alexandra Aldridge and Daniel Eaton taking on traditional Indian dance in their 2013-14 season free dance, it may be timely to review Indian dance's on-ice history -- a lengthier one than some may know.
Most demonstrations of Indian dance in Western outlets, whether an ice dance program or a routine on So You Think You Can Dance, is termed Bollywood, drawing its inspiration from the somewhat hybridized style of movement presented in the lavish dance sequences from that world of film. The best beginner's guide to Bollywood dance, complete with image and video, may come from BBC. Also worth consulting is this excellent brief history of Bollywood dance, from its earlier days rooted in classical Indian styles to later influences from Western popular dance. Movement is thoroughly explored here, but perhaps the central point worth noting is the foundation of Indian dance upon gesture. While this specific characteristic can mark out the style and make it perhaps rather subject to mimicry, the import of each gesture is great and thus Western dancers -- and ice dance teams -- have more often than not taken an effort to learn from teachers of the style.
The most famous take on Bollywood on ice, of course, belongs to Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who were well-placed to make a big splash with their interpretation. The team and coach/choreographer Marina Zoueva worked with a former professional dancer in an effort to understand and faithfully reproduce the dance's arm and body movements to the ice, while also paying mind to relative authenticity in costuming:
The program's callbacks to its source material are many. Davis's pose at 3:36 is quite explicitly a reference to the image of the Nataraj. Gesture and shape are utilized throughout the dance, including in element work, and take note as well of the head and neck movements at 0:56-0:58, 1:28, and 1:53, and the body positions at 1:13-1:15 and 3:02-3:05, which harken to traditional bharatanatyam's demi-plie in first position, as discussed in the above article.
But as a comparative note, it is worth taking a look at the original dance sequences from which the music for Davis and White's program was drawn: Kajra Re, Silsila Ye Chaahat Ka, and the purest of the dance numbers, Dola Re Dola:
Strongly-choreographed as their effort is, though, Davis and White were not the only or even first team to explore the possibilities of Bollywood and traditional Indian dance movement on the ice. In a twist of fate, in the same season in which Davis and White's original dance appeared, the novice team of Madeline Heritage and Nathaniel Fast also competed a Bollywood program using one of the same music cuts:
The team's opening pose, primarily Heritage's position, is its own take of sorts on the Nataraj, which they immediately follow with several quick side-by-side steps and a twizzle and glide into the demi-plie position. Despite the requirements of the free dance, nods to Bollywood are continued in their subsequent footwork, including the knee bends at 1:19 and 1:20 and dynamic arm positions from 1:31-1:34, and carried through the entrance and interstitial steps in their twizzles at 1:40 and the arms in the second spin position at 3:07, leading into a return to some side-by-side dance work. Heritage's lift positions, too, also reflect snapshots taken from Indian dance. Although imperfectly executed, the team's free dance can rival Davis and White's OD as the most consistently carried-through attempt at reproducing Bollywood movement on ice.
Of course, despite the nods made by both teams in some steps and positioning, the lower body components of the original Bollywood examples -- the hip motion and isolations, the light and swift-moving footwork, the weight-shifting -- are, like genres previously explored along the lines of hip hop and modern, not easily translatable to ice. But what most marks out Bollywood dance -- and most challenges its interpretation in a competitive ice dance program -- is its scope and scale. The Bollywood dance sequence is not created to be much less than spectacle, a feat rather difficult to replicate by two parties in a brightly-lit but sparsely-accoutred ice rink.
But presenting its own challenges is classical Indian dance, of which bharatanatyam might be the most well-known example, as well as that style which informs Aldridge and Eaton's approach. While bharatanatyam is too comprised in large part of gesture, it is equally reliant on footwork. The building block of the bharatanatyman is, in fact, the adavu, a combination of hand, leg, and overall body movements. While some attempt might, again, be made to nod to these postures when choreographically permissible, it is again down more to the mudras, or hand gestures, to suggest traditional Indian movement in a program. An exceptionally thorough index of gestures, including photos, is linked through this page, while this video also offers a detailed rundown.
Maureen Ibanez and Neil Brown's 2007-08 original dance, set to the Bollywood number "Bole Chudiyan," is dominated more often than not by a fairly standard approach to the elements, but a number of choreographic touches do work to establish almost something more in line with a classical Indian approach than the flashier, bouncier Bollywood of the other dances:
Take, as one example, their opening sequence from 0:35-0:46 and compare with this invocatory bharatanatyman performance from Savitha Sastry:
Another, somewhat less faithful go at classical dance, also set to a Bollywood cut, was delivered in the same season by Zoe Blanc and Pierre-Loup Bouquet, adorned in rather less traditional costuming than the other examples offered here. While their opening sequence, too, points to the source genre with the gesture work, the overall movement and choreography is more ice-based than otherwise. The team works in their Indian movement primarily through occasional returns to gesture, such as the transition from the in-hold sequence moving into the no-touch step sequence at 1:55, creating a kind of patchwork of Indian-inspired dance and standard elements. But the gestures, though not especially well-articulated, can be traced to the mudras, such as Blanc's hamsasya while in lift at 2:49 and again in end pose.
While an attempt to reproduce similar gestures and body movements is clear in these more traditionally-inspired programs, one additional component is both quite evident in her performance and quite clearly absent in general from its on-ice counterparts: the use of eye movement, another layer of meaning in classical dance that may be of fairly minor consequence to a judging panel more concerned with larger and more skating-bound detail as well as simply difficult to carry through while executing elements and constant on-ice motion -- though a little nod is offered, as noted by commentators Tom Hammond and Tracy Wilson, in the opening moments of Davis and White's original dance.
One last, rather loose take on the concept of the Indian dance or Bollywood program may come from Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan Giulietti-Schmitt, who in 2009-10 skated their free dance to selections from the Slumdog Millionaire score. The team focused their movement efforts almost exclusively in the lyrical vein -- yet they still opt to include a few gestural moments at midpoint:
In wrapping this look at Bollywood and bharatanatyam, it's important to note a certain irony of bringing either genre to a coupled-dance discipline: for as much a cornerstone as dance is of the Bollywood film, dance sequences between only a hero and heroine are infrequent or less dance-intensive than group sequences; classical dance, meanwhile, is traditionally a solo art. So ice dance by its nature, then, might be challenged by more than physics to most faithfully replicate its source matter -- but the most faithful efforts can also reveal the surprising possibilities for its on-ice recreation.
