If you watch real Tango performances, there’s never overt “drama” in the dancing. Its tension is interior, its melancholy sublimated. P/C’s RD is the truest representation of this idea, and they also have the most refined details.
The thing that separates them from the others has been and still is movement quality. Just compare the opening moves of Papadakis and Weaver. Look at the former’s finely calibrated acceleration and deceleration, the turn-out of the feet, the elegant torque of the torso and the head, the eyes (brief glimpse at her partner but otherwise looking away and sightlines moving with her head, no “flirting” with judges), the plastique and the amplitude. This level of refinement is not matched by any team I’ve seen.
This is why many people in the dance world took to them immediately last season. I’ve heard from more than one professional dancer and dance critic that “they (P/C) are dancers, not (just) skaters”. A retired professional ballet dancer told me she was hooked as soon as she saw the opening arm movements of the Moonlight Sonata program. Of course dance people know little about blade work, but skating people do and P/C’s edge quality is widely admired. This combination (which I think the judges have sensed and come to appreciate) and their potential for further growth, is why I think they will remain the exemplar Dance team for some time.
