Do laypeople (non-skaters) understand ice dance?

[blue_idealist]

I'm not a serious skater, but I understand the technicalities of ice dance and how difficult it is from reading about it and hearing from commentators. From reading about it I can name different moves and I generally know which ones are more difficult than others.

 

[ivy]

I'm on the fence with Ice Dance.

I grew up watching figuring skating, started paying lots of attention during the MK years. Also skated outside as a kid and took USFSA classes as an adult. Parts of ice dance I really enjoy, the footwork, the edging, some of the lifts. Generally I like the way the sport is going stylistically. V/M's Oly fd is the gold standard for me, was crying by the end, a la what MK could do and what got me hooked on watching competitive skating. Don't know much about ballroom dancing except what I've learned from 'So You Think You Can Dance!'

Enjoyed watching D/W a lot at SA, but the French team (P/B?) that took silver left me cold. Just seemed so gimicky and weird - couldn't get past the Egyptian hands and mummy wraps to actually enjoy the skating. Felt like a big cliche to me - though I know it's to others taste.

One other general ice dance note. Twizzles - which seem like the signature ice dance move - aren't interesting to me. Seems more like a trick then skating. I can see that they're hard, especially to get in sync with another. I think it goes to my preference for deep loopy edges - where as twizzles seem to use shallow edges or the flat of the blade.

There's one view of ice dance from an engaged lay person. Right now there's enough to keep me casually watching, but not enough to have me staying up late or hunting through YouTube videos.

 

[KKonas]

Ice dancing does take more involved learning process as you have to really know about "edges." You cannot do a twizzle on the flat of the blade. Skating is all about "edges." A step from an inside edge to an inside edge or an outside edge to an outside edge is called a "mohawk." The step from an inside to an outside ege or vice versa is called a "choctaw", a key step in the rhumba CD. Dancers use lots of difficult transitions, changing from backwards to forwards in various turns, or lobes. Skating side by side is easier than skating face-to-face. Dancers can also do pirouettes, (spins) arabesques, spirals and pivots. Twizzles are the most difficult turns in skating. This is all very basic stuff. How complex the footwork, change of direction, the speed in which one can accomplish these tasks are what make the top skaters so good.

 

[Olympia]

I'm on the fence with Ice Dance.

I grew up watching figuring skating, started paying lots of attention during the MK years. Also skated outside as a kid and took USFSA classes as an adult. Parts of ice dance I really enjoy, the footwork, the edging, some of the lifts. Generally I like the way the sport is going stylistically. V/M's Oly fd is the gold standard for me, was crying by the end, a la what MK could do and what got me hooked on watching competitive skating. Don't know much about ballroom dancing except what I've learned from 'So You Think You Can Dance!'

Enjoyed watching D/W a lot at SA, but the French team (P/B?) that took silver left me cold. Just seemed so gimicky and weird - couldn't get past the Egyptian hands and mummy wraps to actually enjoy the skating. Felt like a big cliche to me - though I know it's to others taste.

One other general ice dance note. Twizzles - which seem like the signature ice dance move - aren't interesting to me. Seems more like a trick then skating. I can see that they're hard, especially to get in sync with another. I think it goes to my preference for deep loopy edges - where as twizzles seem to use shallow edges or the flat of the blade.

There's one view of ice dance from an engaged lay person. Right now there's enough to keep me casually watching, but not enough to have me staying up late or hunting through YouTube videos.

I didn't take in twizzles too much until, ironically, I saw them done superbly by a singles skater—Mao Asada. One of the Chopin skates she did last year (can't find it right now) concentrated on twizzles in both directions, and man, were they exquisite, not just because of her bladework but because of her arm and shoulder positions. Now I can watch them in ice dance with much more delight.

I agree that ice dance is subtler and takes more work on the part of the viewer. I feel ignorant but blessed when I get to watch good ice dancing. To vary Blue Dog's metaphor a bit, pairs skating is like a symphony or a concerto, whereas ice dancing is more like chamber music. And there's some amazing chamber music out there.

 

[jcoates]

What I find endlessly fascinating about ice dance it that it is really the most malleable of the disciplines. It can be pulled, pushed and stretched in so many different ways and directions and still be beautiful, interesting, and difficult. The accepted range of what is difficult has changed, expanded and contracted so many times over the decades. Patterns of FDs were much more straightforward and linear in much of the 60's and 70's and most of Torvill and Dean's career. Once Bolero was wildly accepted by judges and the public, it's arguable that it's longest lasting impact was not its aesthetic value, but it's creative use of multi-direction patterning. The curvy patterns rather than simpler straight line or circular dancing still exists widely today aside from the technical. Complaints existed at the time about the lack of the fast, sharp, rhythmic steps people were used to seeing in ice dance up to that point. But eventually most people made room for T/D's approach because it was so beautiful. People gradually realized the direction changes added to the program's difficulty and the fact that they were done done in complicated holds increased that difficulty. It forced people to look at what was possible in dance in new ways, actually expanding the range of difficulty.

Interestingly, T/D were not the first ice dancers to try either theme dances or to incorporate the type of patterning I mentioned. They were the ones who succeeded in getting them accepted for the long term. Credit should be given to their predecessors, Moiseeva and Minenkov (affectionately Min & Mo), 76 OSM and 80 OBM, and 2 time WC. Tarasova coached them and helped to push them in new creative directions in the late 70s. Their approach was initially accepted, but then a backlash happened and Linichuk and Karponosov and Regoczy and Sallay's more straightforward approaches won out in the end. Min & Mo became more conventional in response, but kept losing ground, eventually retiring. Tarasova has talked wistfully about their attempts at expanding dance and how it hurt them before Torvill and Dean came along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03MLZRFouqA (77 worlds FD)
http://video.mail.ru/mail/magvalentinamag/3692/6411.html (78 worlds ex; Romeo and Juliet; Bolero's direct predecessor IMO)
http://video.mail.ru/mail/magvalentinamag/3692/6421.html (78 worlds FD West Side Story)

You can see how these dances influenced T/D.

 

[dorispulaski]

I loved Minnie & Mo!
They were also coached by Pahkhomova & Dubova, so they had the trifecta of great Russian coaching.

 

[jettasian]

Good topic
and Yes, non-skater will not understand Ice Dance. I'm a non-skater, and most of the time, I can NOT tell the difference, esp the now-dead Complousary Dance. Of course, unless it's V&M vs. say a newbie team, then yeah. But for the top 5 or 10 teams, it's very difficult to tell who's better than whom.

I'm only getting into Ice Dance because of V&M, if it's not for them, I'd not care much.

A friend of mine, who's not a big skating fan, he watches Men, Ladies and Pairs but not Ice Dance, because he has NO IDEA what's going on.

 

[Tonichelle]

Good topic
and Yes, non-skater will not understand Ice Dance. I'm a non-skater, and most of the time, I can NOT tell the difference, esp the now-dead Complousary Dance. Of course, unless it's V&M vs. say a newbie team, then yeah. But for the top 5 or 10 teams, it's very difficult to tell who's better than whom.

I'm only getting into Ice Dance because of V&M, if it's not for them, I'd not care much.

A friend of mine, who's not a big skating fan, he watches Men, Ladies and Pairs but not Ice Dance, because he has NO IDEA what's going on.

Um, I'm a Non-Skater and I understand it.

 

[blue dog]

Besides skating and footwork, what dance has in common with the other disciplines and all good art forms and good moments in sport is that if it is good, not only does it transcend technique, but you understand it.

Doris cited an example, where T/D drew a sold-out crowd to their compulsory dance. Their technique was so solid that they communicated not only the difficulty of the dance, but the art form behind it.

Take, for example, V/M's Mahler free dance-- people for years have interpreted the meaning of Mahler's Adagietto to suit their own emotions. Many people listen to it and associate it with grief and sadness (I certainly did after watching Gordeeva skate to it in 1995). Mahler actually wrote it as an intended marriage proposal for his wife-to-be, Alma. Some have simply interpreted it as the human breath.

When you see V/M's program, there is no need for an explanation from them, you needn't research Mahler's intended meaning.

 

[Dragonlady]

I watched the FD from Skate America with my daughter’s boyfriend while she was getting ready to go out. The guy has absolutely no knowledge of figure skating and only watched with me to be polite and because I had the remote. After Davis & White finished, he said to me “Was that as good as I think it was? They’re on a whole different level from the rest of the teams”. I told him that yes, it really was that good.

Having said that, at Canadians in 2006, a friend of mine who is another former skatemom and longtime club volunteer, came over and sat with me and two other friends, one of whom is a former junior ice-dancer, for the CD’s because she wanted to understand what the judges were looking for because she had no idea. By half-way through the group, she said she could now see the differences.

Yes, ice-dance is different from the other disciplines because the quality of their basic skating is so much more important than in singles. Speed, flow, depth of edge, crispness in the footwork, matching lines, how close together the skaters are – all fine details that can easily be seen, if you know what to look for.

A few years ago, someone posted a side by side comparison of three teams doing one of the CD’s. The teams were Dom/Shabs, Del/Schoes and Den/Stav. Den/Stav were the reigning World Champions and there was a huge hue and cry because they had been dumped to 3rd in the CD by the judges. What the side by side comparison showed was that Den/Stav were not deep into their edges on this dance and in fact, were nearly straight up and down. Their patterns were shallow compared to the other two teams, and the judges got it right.

 

[dorispulaski]

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to post some videos of ice dances that we feel are easily appreciated by "laypeople"?

If so, here's some of mine:

Torvill & Dean's Paso Doble. She's a cape, he's a matador. It's an OSP so the pattern repeats. But it's fabulous anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwXTYlsynM8

Torvill & Dean's Mack & Mable FD
This was based on an obscure Broadway musical about :

Mack & Mabel is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The plot involves the tumultuous romantic relationship between Hollywood director Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand (transformed from an artist's model to a waitress from Flatbush, Brooklyn for the musical), who became one of his biggest stars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td41K0LG2xc

1987 Annenko & Sretensky Romeo & Juliet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNo0HGiPLG8

1992 Klimova and Ponamarenko, Air
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnvBMefCngc

V&M's Mahler, about a young bride & groom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Pc_a-WBSs

D&W's Samson & Delilah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S65MXD3XHvQ

Duchesnay's Missing, about the a brother & sister in Chile, where people were being disappeared by the regime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coM4d1CQZfs

Grishuk & Platov The Feeling Begins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRkR9T17d_E&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL42A796691563ED80

 

[blue dog]

I would put this one there, also:

Dubreuil/Lauzon
http://youtu.be/Dtoe1lfea5w

I think one of the reasons why ice dance was so misunderstood for a long time was because a lot of dance teams went for overdramatic pieces that were winning for a long time (in both the amateur and professional ranks). So, because they were winning, a lot of teams copied them, which resulted in overdramatization of ice dance:

http://youtu.be/9OuAYxDOvwM
http://youtu.be/jCDLaDAAnoY
http://youtu.be/Xn72XujifZY

 

[ivy]

I didn't take in twizzles too much until, ironically, I saw them done superbly by a singles skater—Mao Asada. One of the Chopin skates she did last year (can't find it right now) concentrated on twizzles in both directions, and man, were they exquisite, not just because of her bladework but because of her arm and shoulder positions. Now I can watch them in ice dance with much more delight.

Thanks Olympia - I'll track that down, watch it and see if I can get excited about twizzles - it's ringing a bell in the back of my head already. Like I said I know they're hard, but when I watch them I see a combo between an uncentered spin and a barrel roll. It's just something I don't get. On the other hand footwork with choctaws mohawks 3 turns and the like I do enjoy and sort of understand.

It's interesting that the ice dance aficionados see the discipline as the most subtle in figure skating, and hinges on fine details of skating skills. I think many casual figuring skating viewers think it's easiest discipline (cause of the no jump thing), and hinges on over the top costumes an dramatic arm movements. Similar to other posters, I have people in my life that watch skating cause I do and enjoy it, even putting up with poor quality internet feeds with me, but won't watch ice dancing.

In singles skating I enjoy the jumps but actually prefer spins, footwork, and 'moves in the field' stuff (I miss super long Ina Bauers and spread eagles). Again it seems I might be attracted to ice dancing, but the sale hasn't been made yet.

 

[Tonichelle]

Evan Lysacek also uses twizzles in his footwork, he is so freaking fast when he does them... awesome to watch.

 

[leil]

i'm a layperson...

when i started watching figure skating, i loved kurt and underhill and martini. ice dance didn't really appeal to me. i liked bourne and kraatz, but only a few of their programs. i loved sasha so i started to follow her career and that's what got me into the grand prix, worlds, and nationals. however, now, all i care about is ice dance. i think the lifts are much more interesting than pairs. i see kurt browning-like storytelling, footwork and character in dance. i think the connection and drama happen more in dance than in pairs. to me, the complexity of the hand-holds, edging, unison are often evident. somewhere along the line, i realized that they're supposed to be dancing and when i see that on ice, i'm so happy. that was the first thing i noticed about v/m.

routines that moved me to this direction:

d/l -- somewhere in time
v/m -- Malaguena, Valse Triste, Umbrellas of Cherbourg

i went down to canadian nationals during the olympic season, but i only went to see ice dance. i glance at other disciplines too, but i'm a big ice dance fan.

 

[jcoates]

Great idea Doris. Mack and Mabel was the first dance vid I saw that really allowed me to understand what judges were looking for in the FD. I understood the CD and OD a bit better up to that point. But FD standards were harder for me to zero in on. The version I saw was from 1982 Euros (I'm still searching for the clip to post here). John Curry was the analyst for CBS which had the broadcast rights. He was really excellent at making succinct points and zeroing in on what specifically made that dance so superior. If I can locate it, I'll add it here.

ETA: Good point about Somewhere in Time. That was one of the first programs I really felt fit naturally into CoP. It did not look like a paint by the numbers program like many others by former 6.0 dancers adjusting to the new system. You could just sit back and watch it as a cohesive whole.

 

[blue dog]

One of the strengths of Dubreuil and Lauzon, besides jawdropping lifts, is that they are AMAZING storytellers. Audiences "got" their brand of ice dance early on; they were just asked to wait their turn by the judges. When COP rolled around, and the judges began appreciating their lifts, improved footwork, etc, the storytelling came into play and they were able to create Somewhere in Time.

 

[Dragonlady]

One of the strengths of Dubreuil and Lauzon, besides jawdropping lifts, is that they are AMAZING storytellers. Audiences "got" their brand of ice dance early on; they were just asked to wait their turn by the judges. When COP rolled around, and the judges began appreciating their lifts, improved footwork, etc, the storytelling came into play and they were able to create Somewhere in Time.

Alternative take on the rise of D&L: They went to France to train full-time with Mdm. Zazoui. She reworked their basic skating focusing on their technical deficiencies. The first season they worked together there were some improvements but during their second full-time season with Mdm. Zazoui the improvements in their basic skating, speed and footwork were displayed in the Somewhere in Time program, and the judges rewarded them accordingly.

Again, I find these allusions to "waiting their turn" and judging by reputation to be false and not indicative of what was really going on with this team. There are good and valid reasons why this team was not "appreciated by the judges" until they improved their technique, their speed and their presentation.

 

[dorispulaski]

One of the strengths of Dubreuil and Lauzon, besides jawdropping lifts, is that they are AMAZING storytellers. Audiences "got" their brand of ice dance early on; they were just asked to wait their turn by the judges. When COP rolled around, and the judges began appreciating their lifts, improved footwork, etc, the storytelling came into play and they were able to create Somewhere in Time.

Somewhere in Time was a perfect vehicle for them, and they skated it beautifully.

However AFAIR, D&L were not forced to "wait their turn". The rules came round to favor them more than in previous years.

They couldn't dance to the beat to save themselves for most of their career. Certainly when I saw them at Worlds 2003, they couldn't.

Likewise they couldn't do a reverse twizzle without hopping their way around ever, especially Patrice. However, after 2006, the rules were changed; the number of step sequences was dropped, and the number of lifts were raised. This was very helpful to teams like D&L where the guy was big and the girl was tiny, and for whom lifts were effortless. And they had indeed concentrated on having amazing lifts. So for them, the rule changes were a double bonus.

It was harder on teams like Tanith and Ben, whose steps were their strength, and who since they were very similar in size, had lifts that were not as good.

Any rule change, by the nature of changes, favors someone, and penalizes someone else.

It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

 

[NorthernDancers]

Alternative take on the rise of D&L: They went to France to train full-time with Mdm. Zazoui. She reworked their basic skating focusing on their technical deficiencies. The first season they worked together there were some improvements but during their second full-time season with Mdm. Zazoui the improvements in their basic skating, speed and footwork were displayed in the Somewhere in Time program, and the judges rewarded them accordingly.

Again, I find these allusions to "waiting their turn" and judging by reputation to be false and not indicative of what was really going on with this team. There are good and valid reasons why this team was not "appreciated by the judges" until they improved their technique, their speed and their presentation.

I'd agree with that. They did some jaw-dropping awful programs in their first season(s) together. Bizarre concepts poorly executed. And I think they only started skating together at Senior? Not sure about that, but I think so. Then they moved to France and became a whole new team that developed and improved every year into something very special. Add in the choreography of David Wilson that matched them so beautifully, and the results were spectacular later in their career. They are poster-children for starting from the ground up at Senior, and sticking with each other, staying focused on improvement, and finally achieving their dreams.

I have a huge amount of respect for them for doing this, and setting such a great example for younger teams coming up. A team doesn't have to win Novice or Junior, or even have an international reputation in order to be successful. It's about a program of continuous improvement, and having the patience and respect for the partnership to do the work over a period of years. So many expect instant resuts these days, and then switch partners when they don't see the medals in a year or two. With talent and hard work, combined with coach and choreographer who are experts in coaching skating and have the best interests of the skaters always in the forefront, it is possible to succeed. D/L prove that.