20. Tango Pt. 3: Vintage

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 two each 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.

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

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 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:

14. Hip-Hop Revisited

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.

7. Disco

Were it not for the demise of the compulsory dance, the following herein could have been ice dance's 2010-11 season.

The emergence of the hybrid short dance supplanted -- or, rather, subsumed -- not only the compulsory, but the original dance as well, in all its eclectic ballroom to Charleston to folk glory. And with the removal of that segment came the scrapping of not only the ISU's initial planned 2010-11 Midnight Blues compulsory, but, more key to our purposes: the Rhythms of the 1960s and 1970s original dance. The likelihood that every international team would have elected to dodge an option that permitted easy rhythms, in-hold movement, and multiple appropriate lift options is, to be sure, unlikely: Ice disco would have seen its high-profile competitive day.

We are all well familiar with the floor dance, thanks, if nothing else, to the enduring legacy of retro callbacks and parody. But a little history of the genre's development makes an interesting read, illuminating its actual cultural and stylistic origins. Disco was not born of white polyester leisure suits, but of decade-old remnants of jitterbug and swing and more than a touch of salsa and other Latin forms. While formal steps existed, however, disco as a mostly social endeavor was more often, in practice, a little more freeform, following prescribed patterns but mostly comprising walks and flourishes.

Disco also might be remembered a little more for solo showboating than as a partnered style, largely courtesy of John Travolta and a subsequent boom in solo freestyling. That spirit also has its place in skating, as Richard Dornbush can attest -- but the Hustle and its mates are of more relevance here.

This eHow series offers a good instructional look at some general partnered disco movement. Even more of a must-watch for a general understanding of partnered disco is this 1979/80 clip from Disco Step-by-Step, a Buffalo TV series dedicated to all things disco:


Movement is not exceptionally complex. The steps are often of a manageable pace and simplicity, the holds are generally open, and there's nothing too exotic about the turns. It could be replicated on ice with relative ease (and, in its movements as divorced from disco music, has been quite casually), and certainly with greater ease than another social style like hip-hop, but there's a curious fact: on-ice disco is, by and large, all about the flourish and the flourish alone.

The ur-disco program -- at least as far as YouTube is concerned -- is probably Megan Wing and Aaron Lowe's 1998 exhibition to "Knock On Wood":


It takes a little time to move into its danciest groove, but the disco feel is particularly evident at 1:15-1:20 and 2:00-2:07 while 2:11 brings a hallmark of many an ice disco program: the semi-headbanger rotational lift. 1:27 also brings in a through-the-legs move that we'll see again. The gesture, though, is the most obvious reference point to an idea of disco, but it's difficult to describe in any more technical detail; if a thorough glossary of disco arm movements exists, it has so far eluded me.

Well after Wing and Lowe's number came the emergence of several examples of contemporary disco on a popular stage: the choreographic efforts of Doriana Sanchez on So You Think You Can Dance. It's no sure thing that such numbers influenced the next generation of ice dance disco, but at the same time, it offers a rather reasonable point of comparison.

Among the show's disco numbers, it's hard to find many routines that match the energy of Janette and Brandon's while also offering some solid examples of general elements -- the in-hold dancing, the side-by-side gesture, and a few good lifts. The music selection may also sound familiar:


But it's left to a few other routines to demonstrate some key tricks that appeared in Wing and Lowe's number and will be in evidence in later programs. Assisted on-the-floor spins -- which we'll see later -- come in a straightforward manner from Sara and Neil, with the addition of a fun gender equality twist from Kayla and Brandon, and as the entrance and exit from a sequence that evolves into a semi-headbanger courtesy of Chelsie and Joshua. And Mollee and Nathan, for their part, provide us with an impressively gymnastic take on the through-the-legs maneuver.

The standard-bearer for disco on ice might be Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates's 2009 "You Should Be Dancing" exhibition. In-hold action is minimal, but the side-by-side movement is sharp, the requisite tricks are worked in well enough, and Bates even gets a few moments of solo glory:


It might be surprising that a compilation of multiple disco highlight moves comes in a program that should not be a disco number at all. The duets of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell could by no means be classified as member of a musical genre that hadn't yet come into existence, but Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir still juxtaposed a variety of '60s inspired dance moves with some key disco tricks in 2012's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough":


Not only do we have the semi-headbanger and a through-the-legs move, but they are notably the only team in this group to offer an assisted floor -- ice -- spin, as demonstrated at 1:15.

It's important, though, to consider that each of these examples came through exhibition, a program in which flash and tricks overtake traditional required ice dance movement. What would a competitive take on disco have to offer for in-hold possibilities? Will we ever know?

5. Country Western

To resume a lesson as though several months hadn't passed: the 2/4 tempo can be found in more than one musical -- and dance -- genre. And one utilized by a few teams this season is that associated more with a honkytonk than Oktoberfest.

This history of Country-Western dance in fact emphasizes the polka heritage of country dance, traceable to the Central European heritage of many settlers in Western areas such as Texas. This glossary gives a little more useful detail on the actual movements of today's dance and its substyles. Naturally, the Yankee Polka step requirements proscribe any team from fully adapting the rhythmic requirements to another genre; every dance will share the pattern and carry a little polka flavor. But careful music selection and cohesive choreography can greatly minimize the disruption potentially offered by the compulsory.

Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan Giulietti-Schmitt made a particular effort to incorporate floor stylings -- check out the skips in the program's first four seconds:


Though the overall performance was one of their weaker of the season -- better outings from Skate America and the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic are not readily available -- for choreographic purposes it will do well enough. The first minute takes some two-step inspiration, while the changes of hold reflect a little taste of the shuffle:


For another taste of CW dance on the floor, a number of instructional videos are available, but also miss a bit of the flavor. This lesson is rather less formal, but it might be among the most authentic tastes of contemporary CW dance on YouTube:


Akin to that informality, Nicole Orford and Thomas Williams's take on CW is a little grittier in style than Kriengkrairut and Giulietti-Schmitt's, taking on a bit of the stomping rodeo feel reflective of William's native Calgary:


The transition movement from 2:17-2:22 works effectively as a free-feeling break -- it's choreography, but it appears more like an incidental element. They sell it, they're loose, and they've got the right spirit.

On a final note, one might recall that a few top teams took a CW approach to 2009-10's folk dance OD; worth observing is the significant differences in pieces like Evan Bates and Emily Samuelson's Dixie Chicks medley and Pechalat and Bourzat's own take from the above short dances. While both programs have an obvious CW feel, they're also arguably a bit more open in movement and theatrical in style. The Yankee Polka and rhythmic requirements may have forced certain choreography, but at the same time seem to have had the intriguing effect of establishing programs that bear a slightly closer resemblance to their floor forebears.

4: The Polka

In one of this season's less surprising developments, an approximate 98% of teams have shown or indicated plans to present the Yankee Polka pattern in any form but its most obvious. This is, all things considered, not an insensible strategy, despite the disappointment it may mean for devoted lovers of traditional polka.

Thus far, teams are generally opting instead for a diverse but necessarily small pool of variations on the required 2/4 tempo and accompanying permitted rhythm (waltz, march, or more polka). Traditional ballroom, Country-Western, classic musical, and French themes are so far the most popular, and will be explored here in weeks to come, as enough videos of these programs in competition actually become available. For the moment, let's focus on the polka -- Yankee and floor -- itself.

The Yankee Polka pattern is a bit of an outlier for having originated in the U.S., and as (comparatively) recently as 1969, in an apparently polka-friendly period in American culture. As with the blues, Ice-Dance.com provides an excellent reference page outlining the pattern's steps and technical requirements. But also of note is what else separates the Yankee Polka from a pattern like blues or last year's rhumba, and that's a sense of continuity with its source material.

Analyzing a step chart from the polka isn't especially instructive on a technical level, but knowing what most characterizes the style -- the hop or half-step -- is key. A little historical background on this dance is also useful, and this not-historical video gives some idea of how the dance style initially fit within a ballroom context:


Today the style is considered far more as a cultural dance, with Polish and German styles among other variants. This instruction video, however, strips it down to pure technique, which may be more helpful here:


The ISU's Yankee Polka guidelines assert that The character of the dance is achieved through the interesting use of one beat edges and very short steps skated on the "and" between counts. In this well-skated and rather unusual take from Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder, we can see two "very short steps" in the first two steps of the compulsory dance proper (beginning at 0:30), followed by a three-turn recalling the dance's contrasting longer steps:


Of course, of almost as great importance to a properly-rendered on-ice polka is the dance's character. The steps give an indication, but the attitude needs to be more full-bodied: the polka and Yankee Polka are sprightly, happy, upbeat dances. A skater may seek out darker-edged 2/4 musical selection, and may be successful in such a search -- but a mournful or angry performance seems unlikely, if not costly. The tempo lends itself to a bouncy character; the required steps reinforce the tempo; the full dance cannot clash in spirit without a team's anticipating some confused feedback.

To conclude, I'll leave you with an überconventional -- and quite appropriately bouncy -- take from former German champions Kati Winkler and René Lohse as a balance for all those untraditional variations on the polka to come,:

3. Swing

The most popular pairing of all for a blues short dance has been, probably unsurprisingly, swing. A few teams, like Americans Madeline Heritage and Nathaniel Fast, have opted to tackle a full blues program; a few others, as discussed last week, are daring the hip-hop option. But swing provides, frankly, the easiest opportunity for a team to showcase their ability to handle multiple tempos and swift mood shifts -- and may also simply be more fun to train daily.

Swing dance saw a popular resurgence in the late '90s, in a story with which many are already familiar involving things like Gap commercials, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, and indie films featuring Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. Today the major styles primarily competed are West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, and Lindy Hop.

The formalized East Coast Swing and frequently improvisational West Coast Swing bear very little affinity to the swing of ice dance, which generally roots itself in a Big Band-era style. The traditional Lindy Hop is its closet floor companion; The Lindy Circle offers a nice overview of Lindy Hop's origin, as well as swing's development from that original style. Wikipedia, too, provides a cursory but useful guide to Lindy Hop and swing moves. And while many vintage swing videos are available, this montage gives a pretty good glimpse of a variety of moves (albeit missing the component of original accompanying music):


Swing in ice dance was last seen in a big way in the 2008-09 season, with an original dance that called for rhythms and dances of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. One especially spirited senior OD came from Sinead and John Kerr, whose rhythms, interestingly, were officially classified quite specifically as West Coast Swing and Lindy Hop:


For the juniors, who faced the same OD requirement, Maia and Alex Shibutani put out a fun Big Band program:


The advantage that these prior teams had, of course, was the absence of a requisite pattern and mandated rhythm; while they still choose to showcase a variety of rhythms, they're at greater liberty to experiment with movement (within, of course, the ordinary restraints). On the other hand, such restriction as faced by today's teams makes the accomplishment of the more successful SDs all the more impressive. Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France, champions at JGP Courchevel, have one of the stronger swing SDs this season, using The Brian Setzer Orchestra's "The Dirty Boogie" for that segment. Note the nice aerial movement from Papadakis, as well as some fairly authentic liftwork:

2. Hip-Hop

When the ISU selected hip-hop as one of three acceptable rhythms for this year's blues-based junior short dance, the reaction in the skating media -- and fan media -- was typically thus:

ISU opens door to 'clean' hip hop in ice dancing
Young figure skaters allowed to go gansta
Tupac and Dean? Hip-Hop Approved for Ice Dance
Hip Hop -- wrong way for ice dancing

which provides some perspective on the context into which this genre was so shockingly thrust.

After making their pronouncement, the ISU provided its skaters with a handbook on hip-hop rhythm, including a list of helpful examples of "new style hip-hop": four selections from the American and British versions of So You Think You Can Dance. The routines are well-performed, and most are based in the lyrical hip-hop style -- SYTYCD US's usual approach to hip-hop. But in its perusal of the popular dance program's offerings, the ISU opted not to include something more intensely beat-based (as demonstrated often on the Canadian series), or more in the vein of this well-known piece:


Junior performers ranging in age from 13 to 21, blades and ice, and an audience and judging panel including many parties not traditionally predominant in hip-hop's fanbase -- these present some very real limitations on the diversity of work today's teams can present.

And yet the genre's addition to the line-up this year does mark a fairly radical shift in its way for the ISU. Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto's 2007-08 exhibition to Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" and "My Love" is, to date, one of the few readily locatable examples of hip-hop (in its broadest sense) in ice dance:


After unveiling the program at the 2007 Marshall's Showcase, the team shared their desire for hip-hop's recognition and acceptance in the sport. What's not touched upon, however, are the technical elements that may additionally have limited its presence -- and by which even Tanith and Ben were not unaffected.

Surprisingly, the best overview of historical and modern hip-hop comes from Wikipedia, which also offers video links to illustrate each general style. While hip-hop is really a blanket name for an extensive variety of subgenres, one of its primary components is an element of improvisation -- though this is not true for the studio-based hip-hop also popular today, and it's this latter with which ice dance must by necessity be compared. Within the realm of choreographed commercial hip-hop, however, certain rules still apply. From our Wiki entry:

New style hip-hop is choreographed hip-hop social dancing. From a technical aspect, it is characterized as hard-hitting involving flexibility and isolations -- moving a specific body part independently from others. The feet are grounded, the chest is down, and the body is kept loose so that dancers can easily alternate between hitting the beat or moving through the beat.

It is not overstating things to suggest that an effort to reproduce this on ice would be, to say the least, challenging and, in the case of a competitive program, outright detrimental. An exhibition does permit for a stationary moment; see, for example, 1:08-1:14 in Belbin and Agosto's performance. But that same sequence, as carried out on blades on a frictionless surface, can't be quite as effectively grounded as one conducted in sneakers on floor or paved surface. Certainly in competition this requirement is even more questionable; competitive programs are about edgework and maximizing movement across the ice, a bit antithetical to real rooted hip-hop action. In either approach, these simple issues of gravity and grounding may also impact that balance of crisp movement and flow throughout the body.

Ice dancers can't exactly rely upon full-body movement or footwork to showcase their groove. What they can offer instead are upper body isolations. We see this throughout Belbin and Agosto's program; it's a mainstay of recent hip-hop influenced Stars on Ice group choreography which even, occasionally, allows a surprise demonstration of breaking.

Perhaps unsurprising given the inherent challenges, a relative few teams are tackling hip-hop, and to this point in the very young season, most are yet to compete. Of those who have, even fewer have been recorded. To that end, Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter of the U.S. were one of only two duos at last week's JGP Courchevel to present hip-hop, and theirs was the more successful effort. Pairing Róisín Murphy's "Ramalama (Bang Bang)" with Flipron's "Zombie Blues":


It's certainly a novel approach to the program (if not wholly original), but also not quite hip-hop as, say, Tanith and Ben seemed to intend. On the other hand, at today's JGP Lake Placid short dance, Canadian duo Andréanne Poulin and Marc-André Servant gamely worked the upper body motion in their program to Usher's "Mars vs. Venus" and David Guetta & Usher's "Without You":


Of course, neither program goes especially hard-hitting, and it remains to be seen if something just a little heavier from another junior couple may still await us.

And failing that event, perhaps some inventive team in the future might consider giving this man a call.

1: The Blues

Junior ice dance teams this season have the good fortune to have been assigned the blues as their requisite compulsory dance, the pattern upon which their season short dance is to be based. Much was made of the ISU's allowing hip-hop as a supplemental rhythm -- but that's for another post. Let's instead consider the blues itself.

The blues compulsory, like nearly half of all the compulsory dances, was created in Great Britain in the 1930s. Ice-Dance.com, with assistance from the ISU Handbook, provides a good technical breakdown of the pattern; more generally speaking, the dance was then and still is now about deep knees and deep, strong, long edges. And for as much as these elements are about the quality of blade movement, they're also about character -- the blues is a dance of passion, intensity, musicality, and connection, connection, connection.

A fine junior demonstration of the pattern (for seniors, the Midnight Blues supplanted the standard blues in 2001) comes from Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir at the 2005 Junior World Championships:


They certainly hit the edges and the knees, but it's the intro and conclusion that really put them over the top.

But what inspired the blues pattern in the first place? Only the floor dance to a very small extent; here's a sampling of movement found in real blues, original blues, as roughly concurrent with the compulsory's emergence:


A case could be made for the knee bends, but even that's being rather generous. However, what blues as a pattern does offer is more demand for close holds and connected full-body movement than do some other compulsories, those more concerned with the intricacies of footwork -- the technical focus here is the edgework, but it's packaged to require that challenging "something more" of a couple.

But while the blues compulsory has remained essentially static in its eight decades, blues dance has shifted considerably, seeing a particular resurgence in recent years as an effect of the trend for swing, and today's junior short dances haven't necessarily been created in a vacuum. For a few interesting points of technical reference, check out this demonstration of a fundamental step in contemporary blues dance, the lunge, from Portland blues dancers Dustin and Ally, as well as a take on the blues from dancers Campbell and Chris which makes a few nods to swing (and just a bit of Latin):


While ice dance by nature -- and the short dance in particular -- entails considerable technical requirements and restrictions, some choreographers and teams are doing their best to bring out some bluesy floor feeling and movement in the most allowable ways. Canadian junior silver medalist Madeline Edwards and ZhaoKai Pang's short dance, which placed third at JGP Courchevel, was a hit on the summer comp circuit, and for good reason. The skating is excellent, but watch the above-the-blade action. Here's a particularly sharp performance from August's BC/YT SummerSkate competition:



Next time: Hip-Hop. On. ICE; or, The ISU Watches So You Think You Can Dance.