For this second entry in our tango series, we’ll move away from the structure of the compulsory — Argentine and Romantica — tango and move ahead into its looser, choreographed free dance interpretations, along with a quick nod or two to the now-departed original dance. And as the dance proper goes, perhaps the most useful…
Category: Other Sites
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Two for the Ice
Behind the Program, Ep. 6: Manta and Johnson, 2016-17 Free Dance
In ice dance’s current sea of soft lyricals, a free dance with some grit is bound to stand out. And from a team whose last free showed a buoyant, vintage bent, the contrast is even more striking. Karina Manta and Joe Johnson, seventh at last season’s U.S. Nationals and bronze medalists at 2015’s Autumn Classic…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Step Sequences
18. Tango, Pt. 1: The Compulsories
It’s lent its stylings to two senior compulsory patterns, arisen in five seasons for original dance usage — and once as a secondary short dance rhythm, one of those topics we’ll discuss at another time — and otherwise functioned as the focus of countless more free dances. Of all specific partner dances, none can be…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Step Sequences
17. Samba
Between next month’s Rio Olympics and the recent announcement of the 2016-17 season’s revisitation of the Latin short dance, it may finally be time to turn our eyes to that most complex of Latin dances: the samba. A quick look at its overall history is useful and highlights certain of its historical complexities. Note that…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Two for the Ice
With Past as Prologue, Paul and Islam Carry On
It was a classic quote of much-debated origin — “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts” — that concluded the ice dance team’s reflective Facebook post, a season wrap-up tradition begun in the wake of a devastating Canadian Nationals, where an element error meant the difference…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Step Sequences
Special Topic: An Open Letter to Ice Dance
Didier Gailhaguet, president of the French Ice Sports Federation and 2016 candidate for ISU president, made an illuminating observation on the state of ice dance in a recent New York Times article: “I was up high in the arena the night of [Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron’s] free dance, and for at least two minutes…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Step Sequences
16. Charleston and 1920s Dance
The Charleston’s history is a long and tangled one, with touch points including the possibility of a Renaissance-era predecessor in the Branle and its later development amidst the birth of jazz. In style terms, Charleston is one of those dances that’s strictly bound to its time despite remaining familiar to later audiences (anomalies like Dancing…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Step Sequences
15. Ballet
It’s possible to argue that no dance genre more seriously underpins ice dance than ballet. For as much as the discipline’s social and competitive roots align with those of ballroom dance, ballet is a conventional element of figure skating education as a whole. Lines, general carriage and upper body movement translate fairly fluidly from the…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Step Sequences
Special Topic: Choreoliteralism
Choreoliteralism is not a dance genre, per se, though it may certainly correlate with the off-ice category of lyrical dance, in its primary meaning — a balletic/jazz-rooted form illustrating lyrics equal to or over melodic line and rhythm. In other words, lyrical dance relies on a fairly literal depiction of a song’s lyrics. On the…
Ice Dance, Other Sites, Two for the Ice
Together, Hawayek and Baker Shaping Their Vision
If American ice dancers Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker know their stylistic strengths, they know even better how they aim to expand them — beginning with a season’s debut at this week’s Finlandia Trophy. Their new short dance, featuring “Waltz of the Flowers” and “Dance of the Parents” from The Nutcracker, came through collaboration between…
