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life684

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Your points are valid about D/W's dance, but I think you are taking the intent far too literally. The technical panel and judges certainly are giving the "Folk and Country Dance" theme the broadest possible license for skaters to invent and interpret and are apparently not looking for absolute authenticity. Otherwise, they'd be dinging the skaters doing American "Country" left and right, as there's nothing really authentic about those dances either, and particularly skating to modern country/pop music not traditional folk music. Let's all remember that ice dance is a European invention, and floor dances that originated in Europe (flamencos, waltzes, etc.) tend to translate reasonably well to ice in terms of keeping the flavor, theme and sometimes even similar steps. With dance traditions from other parts of the world...it's more of a stretch to put them to ice with any sort of choreography and music that is judge-, COP-, and audience-pleasing. You have to take some liberties to make it work, and that's what D/W have done.


I only commented on D/W dance since many have called it authentically representing Indian culture, Best OD of the year ... blah blah. I just wanted point out some of the serious flaws with the dance.

As for difficulty in bringing Kathak to ice dancing, my guess is it shouldn't be too hard (i am not suggesting it is going to be easy), there are lots of similarities between Kathak and Flamenco .


I am most interested in seeing this aborigine dance from D/S. I can't imagine how an "authentic" aboriginal dance can be put successfully to ice, but glad to see somebody trying it out. Anybody remember the Duchesnay's 1988 "Jungle Dance" (or whatever they called it--it was actually an FD)? It was done to drumming music, was very different for the times, and IIRC not well received by judges, but like most of the audience, I thought it was a brilliant idea. I think judges these days are more flexible and willing to tolerate some diversity in program concepts. And it's Ice Dance, there's no need to come up with programs fit only for authentic performances in a Museum of Ethnography and Anthropology.

Domnina and Shabalin at the Junior worlds in 2003 . It is afro - latin dance, but this would be probably closest D/S have done to their present OD.

You stated perfectly what I wanted to say to life684, but you did it so much more eloquently than I could have.

life684, I suspect that your displeasure with D/W's OD has more to do with your dislike of D/W themselves since you obviously are giving Dom/Shabs a much looser license to interpret their OD even though none of us have yet to see it.

Sorry u suspect this way, i wasn't able to see the beauty of their skating you seem to like... but if that make me a hater, so be it.

interestingly many (no person in particular) people have already criticised D/S music selection, dance etc even before anyone have seen the dances. So is that hatred towards D/S?
 
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colleen o'neill

Medalist
Joined
Nov 3, 2006
^ Speaking for myself, I'm not exactly criticizing their dance (not having seen it) just expressing my sense of foreboding ,based on past egregious liberties I've seen taken by many teams, D/S included. If handled well it could be wonderful, if not, it could be laughable.

The costumes for that 2003 OD, while suitably demure for juniors, had nothing much to do with their music ( might have added a lot to use an African print fabric ).While OK, the effect of the program wasn't a standout.

But as seniors, they had another African/ Latin fusion OD for 2006 , where again (but in a different way ) costumes and music didn't seem to mesh, unless someone thought that the African influence justified putting her in a nude body suit , then wrapping fringe around her so that every time she turned she looked naked..which would be pretty warped thinking. Whatever the reasoning ,it came across as a cheap ploy to grab attention through titillation. It distracted from their actual skating.

I don't think we can look to either of these programs to project what this OD will be. The music is so different. Aboriginal percussion is far less complicated , and digeridoo ( how could they not feature it?) may be hypnotic, but not too melodic.

We'll just have to wait and see.;)
 
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