Friday, November 30, 2018

A New Era of Ice Dancing: What This Season Brings

Well, the six events of the Grand Prix series are finished. As I look back over the fall events, I see that we as figure skating fans have been treated to some incredible ice dancing! I would even go as far as to say that this season is transformative, both in creativity of the programs and, especially, in their structure. As one may expect with a post-Olympic season, a wave of new rules and regulations has hit the entire skating world, quite notably with the change of the judges' marks for grade of execution ranging from -5 to +5, and also the renovated rules for singles skaters performing jumps in the second half of their programs. Also, all disciplines of skating have seen new scales of values for their technical elements. Ice dancing, however, has seen a wide variety of changes in its rules, and I think the performances that we’ve seen over the fall show just how beneficial these changes are. Ice dancing just got a whole lot cooler. Here’s why.

1. New Choreographic Elements

Going into the 2012-13 season, the choreographic lift was introduced to the free dance add a point value to the "transitional lift" that was permitted in past years. Since then, new choreographic elements have been created and added into programs to make ice dancing less dependent on technical levels and more dependent on creating innovative and unique programs. In addition to the lift, the choreographic spinning and twizzling movements were both introduced as options for dancers to choose from when creating their free dances. This season, the number of options for the elements has increased from three to five. The new elements are the choreographic sliding movement and the choreographic character step sequence. Senior couples must perform three different elements in their free dance, and one must be the step sequence. I think this is a great opportunity to evolve choreographic elements from just a lift at the end of a program to movements that flow directly into the choreography and can be placed almost anywhere to enhance the program. Regarding the step sequence, there's a definitely a wide range of exploration of just how effective this can be. While some couples have shown limited exploration with this element's potential, whether it be with lack of creativity, labored movement, or sloppy execution, other teams have made this element into something really great. There are essentially no rules to what can be done in this element, so the possibilities are endless. It allows skaters to show their individual dancing abilities, if they wish to present that. A team that I think really exemplifies this is Sofia Shevchenko and Igor Eremenko, who's character step sequence I mentioned here on my Instagram. This element, in my opinion, can be the biggest connection between free dances and actual dancing on the floor. All in all, these choreographic elements to enhance individual programs and ice dancing as a whole.

2. Reimagined Step Sequences

In the past, step sequences were very much based on the quantity and execution of difficult turns and steps. One flat edge could be what takes a couple down a level and loses them a point and a half in the base value. This season, it has become less important to get clean turns and more important to make the whole step sequence a dance. In fact, it is now discouraged to prioritize performing more turns over adding to the dance. When the technical panel watches for calling correct turns, they will now only consider the first attempt at each type of turn for each skater. What that means is if Jane Doe attempts one million rocker turns in her step sequence, the technical panel will only consider the first for the level. The other nine-hundred ninety nine thousand nine-hundred ninety nine rockers will be ignored. Poor Jane. However, if her partner John Doe only tries one rocker, it will still be evaluated for the level. All that extra work their choreographer made Jane do was unfortunately for nothing.

To comply with this shift of focus, the base values were changed to make the differences in levels much smaller than they were in the past. Instead of being separated by one and a half points, the levels are each separated by only half a point. This makes the overall results less dependent on clean turns in the step sequence and, therefore, makes them less important. I like this change because its another way to have a more even balance of both skating and dance. It makes step sequences more like dancing, and that's pretty much what ice dancing is supposed to be about: dancing.

Another change with this year's step sequences is that couples performing this element in the rhythm dance may perform this element in hold, out of hold, or a combination of both. In the past, the short dance would normally include a required not-touching step sequence, which could look striking and out of place when performed during a rhythm that calls for dancing as one. This season, couples have the opportunity to perform whatever works musically and stands out choreographically. If you ask me, any chance to skate separately in ice dancing should probably be explored, in moderation of course. There's a reason why two ice dancers are called a couple.

3. New Grades of Execution

The change in grades of execution to a range of -5 to +5 was implemented by the ISU to prioritize well executed elements over poorly executed elements of high difficulty. However, this changed has been used for another purpose as well. In ice dancing, the maximum GOE a couple can get on a leveled element is seventy five percent (instead of fifty like singles and pairs) of the element's level 1 base value. If only a base level is achieved, the maximum is seventy five percent of that value. For choreographic elements, which are only worth 1.10 each, a couple can earn an extra 4.15 points for execution, over three hundred seventy five percent of the original value. With the seniors performing three of these elements in the free dance, it is vital for them to create some amazing choreographic elements. This season has already seen skaters who showed how impactful these elements can be prevail over couples who may have performed rather forgettable choreographic elements as if they were simply a hassle. In the case of Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson, whose performance I analyzed here, they were in seventh place after the rhythm dance at this season's NHK Trophy, but their free dance was a comeback the likes of which are rarely seen. They performed a show stopping program to selections by Donna Summer and Earth, Wind & Fire that was highlighted by their fantastic choreographic elements. They opened with a character step sequence that perfectly set the tone for their disco program and immediately got the attention of the crowd. As they neared the end of their free dance with the audience in the palms of their hands, they performed a wonderful set of choreographic twizzles right to the music and finished with a choreographic slide that never seemed to end. Of course, no one wanted it to end anyway. For those elements, Fear and Gibson received nothing lower than +3 from every single judge. Their slide was even mostly rewarded with +5s. These huge marks led to the couple getting second in the free dance with the highest technical score in the event. Fear and Gibson finished in fourth place overall, a jump of three placement from their rhythm dance. This is one example of how well-crafted choreographic elements can play a big part in who moves up in the rankings of an event and who moves down.

As you can see, ice dancing has become a whole lot cooler, and it's because of rules! I'm certainly glad to see couples exploring what these changes are capable of showing, but I think there is much more that the skaters can do with what they are being given. Maybe someday soon we'll see incredibly complicated Irish step-dancing being done for a character step sequence, or my fantasy of seeing skaters do illusion twizzles will finally come to fruition (hint hint wink wink someone do this please). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know what I should write about.

Happy dancing!
-TJ

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