Do it subtly, do it skillfully, and do it in Spanish. Watch closely as Maia and Alex Shibutani execute their first twizzle set starting at about 2:36 (embed should begin at the designated time)...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2017/10/when-choreoliteralism-is-used-for-good.html
Not content to remain relics of broader Step Sequences lessons in Latin, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir have unveiled a classic rock-scored r(h)umba short dance that neatly condenses a Dancesport sy...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-subject-for-tonights-lecture-is.html
Back at the outset of the 2015-16 season, Step Sequences devoted some space to the newly-coined matter of choreoliteralism: moments of choreography that literally depict song lyrics. This concep...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2017/09/special-topic-choreoliteralism-revisited.html
Ice dance began its life as "hand-in-hand skating," something separate from the "combined" skating also en vogue around the turn of the twentieth century, and analogized to waltz and polka by Ca...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2017/05/special-topic-ballroom-roots.html
If ice dance tangos can be ballroom and Argentine, compulsory, short-form or freestyle, they can also take their cues from a wholly other source: history. More than seems to be the case with othe...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2017/05/20-tango-pt-3-vintage.html
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 inter...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2016/12/19-tango-pt-2-freestyle.html
The tango is so ingrained over nine decades of ice dance that in terms of sheer scope, it's too daunting to tackle as a single post. And so we'll begin instead with the fundamentals of tango on i...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2016/09/18-tango-pt-1-compulsories.html
I have in the past year become more comfortable at publicly venturing opinions of a skating nature while continuing my work as a journalist of the sport. Though I never hope to hurt feelings -- a...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-manifesto-on-opinion.html
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 ...
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 articl...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2016/04/an-open-letter-to-ice-dance.html
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...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2016/03/16-charleston-and-1920s-dance.html
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 ...
In its second installment, long ago at the outset of the 2012-13 season, Step Sequences explored the hitherto relatively unexplored territory of hip-hop on ice . At this time, it was a permitted ...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2015/12/14-hip-hop-revisited.html
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 ly...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2015/10/special-topic-choreoliteralism.html
At last, an overdue look at this year's senior compulsory pattern, the Paso Doble, a style which, more than others from the ballroom family, has had some unexpected success -- and challenge where...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2015/01/13-paso-doble.html
Where foxtrot meets ice, the primary takeaway should be less on specific steps or even hold or frame, and more on a general rhythmic quality; the dance is marked by its slow-slow-quick-quick patt...
The Finnstep, paired with this season's accompanying rhythms, lends itself to a nice range of interpretive approaches, from standard ballroom to social swing or Charleston. Its tempo requirements...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2014/03/11-theatrical-dance.html
The quickstep compulsory , like most compulsories of its era, found it appropriate to substitute the face-to-face dance hold of its floor inspiration with kilian. Where the dance calls for a stan...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2013/09/10-quickstep-and-finnstep.html
With Alexandra Aldridge and Daniel Eaton taking on traditional Indian dance in their 2013-14 season free dance , it may be timely to review Indian dance's on-ice history -- a lengthier one than s...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2013/08/9-bollywood-and-bharatanatyam.html
It stands to reason that any dance style characterized in part by sustained eye contact and sexual tension would, naturally, be embodied in compulsory dance form by a pattern skated almost exclus...
Were it not for the demise of the compulsory dance, the following herein could have been ice dance's 2010-11 season. The emergence of the hybrid short dance supplanted -- or, rather, subsumed ...
Moving on for a time from the short dance, let's consider the ambitions of a few teams this season who, with the assistance of dance choreographers, tackled one of the less readily-adaptable genr...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2013/03/modern-and-contemporary-dance-2012-13.html
Among the less direct approaches taken to this season's Yankee Polka is the Gallic route: the polka lends itself rather intriguingly to French style. And for more than one established team this s...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2013/02/6-french-dance.html
To resume a lesson as though several months hadn't passed: the 2/4 tempo can be found in more than one musical -- and dance -- genre. And one utilized by a few teams this season is that associate...
http://stepsequences.blogspot.com/2012/12/5-country-western.html
In one of this season's less surprising developments, an approximate 98% of teams have shown or indicated plans to present the Yankee Polka pattern in any form but its most obvious. This is, all ...