The Short Dance: Year 1

[colleen o'neill]

I really miss the CD. I know I'm quirky , but I would even have preferred to see a simple standard practice outfit adopted for all couples in the CD's.. All the better to compare you with, my dears ! (And save you money in the costume dept.)..Oh well, that was never going to happen ...And surely the ISU could have done something to upgrade and expand their music selections over the years.

Anyway, I'm not happy with the SD either, but found myself enjoying more of them than I would have predicted when the idea was first floated. Of course I didn't expect to like any of them . And for some of those I enjoyed , like H/G's at Canadian's, just because I could enjoy them doesn't mean they really got the job done.. R/T's and W/P's were standouts to me all season and I liked some of the wangos .I think V/M's is very good and I liked P/I's ( esp . when the sound quality was good enough that you could hear the underlying waltz rhythm, which it was , at Canadians )..I/K's is just a mess , not a good waltz, not much of a tango either. And on, and on.
Generally, I agree that more of the all waltz ones worked, but if they all went all waltz, it would just be like one extended CD , and the uninitiated would find it pretty boring.

Overall, the SD was very difficult to get a grasp on, and I'm speaking as an observer, nevermind the skaters ! At least the GW offered some sort of challenge , but if they go to something relatively simple like Rhumba next year , I have to think, what is the point ? I forsee a lot of tinkering , which means it will not get any less confusing for the audience , in the meantime.

I liked the OSP's back in the day, and Bigsis' comments really strike a chord with me ( especially the dramatic fling-abouts bit )..I'm not sure what the length of the OSP was, but if it was shorter there could be some extended parts that were not repeated...?
I liked the idea of the OD, but it definitely needed some reining in , if there's to be no CD.

Northendancers makes a good point about the Jr./Sr transition...how will they get around that ? Countries with deep fields are going to have a lot of skaters stuck in limbo..lost in the shuffle..etc.

[blue dog]

Maybe what they can do is modify the short dance, so that it is more like the short program of the pairs and singles skaters--let the skaters choose the pattern they will use in their short dance. This way, we won't get the weird mashups of waltz/tango, etc.

Of the bygone dance events, I think I miss the OSP the most. The OSP not only showed creativity, but also a mastery of steps needed in both compulsories and the free dances.

[dorispulaski]

For sure, some of my favorite dances ever were the old OSPs, and I still watch them from time to time:

Torvill & Dean's Paso Doble, and their Summertime Blues and their Rumba d'Amour. Klimova & Ponomarenko's Golden Viennese Waltz, Rahkamo & Kokko's Finnish Polka, the Duchesnay's Argentine Tango, Wynne & Druar's Charleston

but I also really love some of the old ODs (we got to see more of them than we did the old OSP's): Denkova & Staviyski's Baroque Grand Ball, Anissina & Peizaret's Flamenco, Fusar-Poli & Margaglio's Quickstep, Grishuk & Platov's Quickstep, Belbin and Agosto's Salsa medley, Navka and Kostmamarov's Ain't No Sunshine, Lang & Tchernyshev's Carmen (Spanish medley), and Davis & White's Bollywood and their Charleston, although they never performed it perfectly-probably the Skate Canada version, Krylova & Ovsiannakov's Jive, and Virtue & Moir's Flamenco And I'd have 4x the honorable mentions too.

And this year, the only dance I might ever watch again for sure is Weaver & Poje's At Last. Honorable mention (because I don't actively dislike these dances) to Davis & White's Musetta's Waltz, Riazanova & Tkchenko's Russian Waltz, Faiella & Scali's My Fair Lady, and Chock & Zuerlein's Edith Piaf medley.

It's a pretty sad commentary.

[blue dog]

And this year, the only dance I might ever watch again for sure is Weaver & Poje's At Last.

My favourite program of any discipline this year.

I think, at the moment, ice dance is truly ice dance at the lower competitive (and adult) levels, where the CD still exists. While the juniors/seniors are still getting to know the SD, ice dance there will continue to be two free dances.