I always wondered how these TES judges are judging things like choreography, presentation or interpretation while they themselves surely are no expert on these. You should have professional dancers, ballet dancers, floor choreographers judge this, not people clearly focused on TES....
This is an interesting idea.
First of all, part of the PCS is Skating Skills. That needs to be judged by judges who understand skating technique. You're calling them "TES judges," but if the panels were to be split between technical and what we might call artistic judges, then I believe the Skating Skills component should be judged by the technical judges. Separately from the TES, certainly in terms of base value and to some extent of execution.
Although I outlined in my previous post why there may be strong correlations between TES and skating skills, both in terms of underlying ability and in terms of execution on a given day. And also why there might be situations in which a strong skater who deserves high SS scores might end up with lower base value without compromising the SS at all.
As for Presentation and Composition components...
Skating judges have been trained to judge these components according to the criteria for judging them within the context of skating rules and traditions. Within that context, the experienced judges have more expertise than most fans or outside performing artists or experts in the evaluation of off-ice performing arts.
Some judges already have their own background/expertise in performing arts, outside of their skating knowledge. Others know nothing about the arts except what they had to learn as part of their judging training.
There could be definite advantages to bringing in outside arts experts to judge PE and CO; there are also definite practical obstacles toward doing so, primarily financial. As you note, these outside experts would expect to be paid and not just donate their time. And using more judges in total, if that were to be the plan, would rack up more expenses for the host.
Scheduling would also be an issue, especially for outside experts who might have their own busy careers in their chosen fields.
For the sake of argument, let's assume those practical issues could be resolved.
How would we want performing arts experts to be trained in the process of judging skating?
Do we want them to understand realities of skating technique and athletic demands that affect the kinds of choices choreographers make in laying out a program?
And the realities of technical program requirements that shape what needs to be included in the programs?
Do we want these outside judges to be educated in the history of skating choreography, famous programs and advancements in creativity, so they can recognize true originality (or homages to past works) in program themes etc., and also in technical content like new or rarely used types of jump combinations, spin and lift positions, combinations of steps and athletic moves that might be seen in sequences, etc.? Surely we don't want someone who hasn't paid much attention to skating before, at all or recently, to see the first skater in an event doing something they'd never seen before and reward them for originality, only to realize that although this move may have been rare last time they watched skating it's now very common and expected.
Do we want them to be exposed to skating as it is practiced at and below junior level, so they can work with a similar understanding of what 1.0 or 3.0 or 5.0 means on the 0-10 scale? Even if we're only bringing them in to judge elite events that don't include skaters in that skill range for SS? But if they think a senior level skater is deficient in PE or CO, can they judge them on the same scale as lower level skaters who might be similarly deficient in those areas?
Do we want these outside experts to get on the same page as each other as to what to reward and penalize? Or is it OK to let serious classical artists and hiphop or pop artists each to bring their own biases to the task? Or actors/directors vs. dancers/choreographers vs. singers vs. instrumentalists/composers vs. painters and sculptors, etc.? Professional artists vs. academics/critics? Should there be any effort to balance the outside-arts backgrounds of these outside artists brought in to evaluate skating, or will the skaters be subject to the luck of the draw or of who happens to be available that week whether they get a panel full of ballerinas or rock musicians?
I think it's fascinating to try to figure out how this might work. But the more I think about it, the more complex it seems to try to make a workable system that would be more fair to skaters.
