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dramionenbooksntswift · 10 months ago

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On Rhythm Dance Rules

As we wrap up the month of August (crazy how fast it went by), we have gotten a sneak preview of what new rhythm dances look like at summer sectional events as well as Lake Placid. And as I type this JGP Bangkok kicks off and we will get a wider picture of the wide variety of interpretation and composition we will see at the junior level. While there is a lot of focus on the 80s as a theme--much more of an "original dance" sort of construct--the technical changes are in many ways more interesting.

Notable changes to the "well-balanced" composition requirements for the rhythm dance this year. Both juniors and seniors may have any part of the body touch the ice during their midline or diagonal StSq provided it does not last more than five seconds, and the entry or exit edge of a difficult turn which temporarily changes overall direction of travel shall not count as a retrogression. For example, a skater could hold the exit edge of their bracket long enough 75% of a semi-circle is completed and the exit velocity points in a completely different direction.

On the junior level:

One of the two pattern sequences will be skated using the steps of the opposite gender.

On the senior level:

The ChRS (choreographic rhythm sequence) from last season which was essentially a ChSt (choreographic character step) has been re-defined to be essentially a choreographic pattern, where the team is required to skate the Silver Samba pattern. Last season, there was an unrestricted number of stops in the ChRS as long as they did not last longer than five seconds, this year none are permitted. Only one skater is required to do the steps at all times, i.e. steps 9-47 must all be skated but partners can switch between the man's and woman's steps and only one partner is required to maintain continuity. The silver samba ChRS must be skated at a MINIMUM of 100bpm, separations can not be wider than two arm lengths and/or last longer than two measures of music.

Additionally, the two-step per partner PSt must consist of a back entry Rocker, Counter, Bracket and Forward Outside Mohawk, removing the 2Tw as an option for level and solely for choreographic transition. The PSt and Style B StSq can be skated at any tempo, so either can be at the same tempo as the ChRS or neither.

Rocker Foxtrot (remixed)

As usual, juniors this year will skate two pattern sequences: steps #1-14 of the Rocker Foxtrot. But in one of the most interesting changes the ISU has made in the last two quads, 1RF will be skated as normal but in 2RF, skaters will be expected to skate the steps of the opposite gender. Rules around holds throughout the pattern have changed as well. In 1RF, the "typical" pattern, couples must maintain "Prescribed Holds during Key Points [and] Variation of Holds outside of Key Points." In 2RF, where opposite steps are skated, the skaters must also maintain the switched tracking and positioning and must maintain "Recognizable Holds during Key Points except Hand in Hand [and] Variation of Holds outside of Key Points."

The key points are seen below. For both patterns, the woman is evaluated on KP 1 and 3, the man on KP 2 and 4. This is why KP 1 & 2 are switched between the two sequences. For steps 11-13, they are identical but the skaters must MAINTAIN tracking, i.e. the man's steps for 11-13 place him to the left of the woman, so for 2RF when the skater's have swapped steps, the woman must be on the left side. Required holds for the key points are any closed hold variation for KPs 1 & 2 (steps 5-7) and any open hold variation for KPs 3 & 4 (steps 11-13).

All quotes in above paragraph from communication #2560.

Silver Samba

The last time the silver samba was a "compulsory pattern" in the short dance was 2014-15 on the junior level. The key points, found in ISU Communication #1857 are below:

It should be noted, that even when structured according to key points, the silver samba is primarily composed of various "simple" steps like swing rolls, three turns, chasses, slip steps, etc. It is not like the Tango Romantica where there is a lot of emphasis on difficult turns. What makes the silver samba a challenging pattern is the variation in timing, going from a steps which last half a beat to full to two beats and back to half beats rapidly. The timing scheme for the Silver Samba is below.

While the ISU has not placed any timing restrictions on specific steps, like there would be in a compulsory pattern KP, maintaining an overall sense of rhythm and tempo is important as steps 9-47 should be skated still on the 4 beat musical measure structure. While there is not a specific "duration" requirement listed, my understanding based on the programs we have seen so far is that the overall pattern should not significantly differ in duration from the number of measures in the original silver samba.

What kinds of results will we see resulting from these changes?

As opposed to last season's latin programs, expect to see much faster programs with significantly more ice coverage. With a 100bpm minimum and a pattern which consists of many half beat steps, this is the first time we are seeing a truly large tempo change in the rhythm dance. With the switch from style A to B step sequences over the past decade, skaters have increasingly and universally switched to slower more exaggerated step sequences, with a rocker for instance taking 2-4x the time that it might have taken previously. This is good for the demonstration of edge control for instance, but results in a lot of homogeneity across very different styles. With the silver samba, even if it is not difficult turns, skaters are being forced to show both a high tempo step section and then the more sedate and extended midline/diagonal style B and PSt.

In my opinion, the difference is night and day with program quality. Even just at the beginning of the season. The "freedom" offered by the ChRS still ended up with every single team having largely the same construction: stop, a cha cha New Yorker, stop for stationary footwork, maybe a samba roll, a twizzle or in place spin, and one or two mini-lifts. IMO, it was exceedingly boring and similar across the discipline, including across the different camps. By mandating a pattern, and encouraging teams to add in steps, new positions, different changes of hold, switching of traditional lead and follow steps, teams are not only forced to differentiate themselves with originality but they are also forced to demonstrate clear skating skills like edge control, power, posture, ice coverage, extension from center of gravity, and edge depth: the entire goal of a pattern comparison. In many ways, the ISU might have been inspired by Caroline Green/Michael Parsons's inverted Midnight Blues pattern with back-to-back holds as a method of differentiating themselves.

In juniors, I think this change is going to result in so much creativity and expansion of skillsets. While not all 2RF sections have had the woman leading, it certainly opens the door for both skaters to learn new aspects of partnering. By allowing variations in holds outside of the key points and requiring closed hold in the KP, it allows skaters to demonstrate creativity while also maintaining a baseline level of difficulty and similarity.

Where do we go forward from here?

Rhythm vs. Original

The ISU has reached a new intermediate between what was formerly the rhythm dance and the older original dance with this new format. What kinds of themes the ISU would use going forward and what combinations of patterns with said themes, in many ways need to be spelled out. Beyond the obvious decades (60s, 70s, 90s, etc.) what kinds of themes would the ISU consider? And how would patterns like the Paso Doble or Viennese Waltz be matched to these new themes?

If I could offer a few suggestions:

Swing: teams must incorporate a social dance rhythm (lindy hop, shag, charleston, jive etc.) with a pattern of quickstep

Nuevo Latin: new Latin rhythms, teams must select one to two Latin rhythms that have not been skated as compulsories (no samba, rhumba, or cha cha) with a pattern of Torville/Dean's Rhumba L'Amour (debut pattern)

Folk Dance: like 2010, teams must incorporate a folk dance element that represents their country or culture and skate the Yankee Polka

Percussive: teams must rely on a primarily percussion driven dance style like flamenco, paso doble, tap dance, Irish step dancing, South Indian bharatanatyam, etc., pattern of Paso Doble

What elements should the “short” include? How should they be scored?

Additionally, while I think the ChRS pattern format brings an element of overall evaluation of a pattern in size, ease of skating, unison, etc. that the key point system missed. There is room for both. An alternative format to the RD could be:

1 section of Pattern (KP system)

1 section of Choreographic Pattern (ChP which is equivalent to ChRS but maybe more clear), teams skate either the alternate section of the pattern or the same steps according to this year's rules which incentivize creativity and style. Maybe with the addition of Mandatory Contact

1 Style A Midline/Diagonal StSq which is composed of two parts: the 4 turn OfSt and the remaining 5 difficult steps and turns. Teams are required to skate one part in hold and one non-touch.

Lift

Twizzles

While the ISU has dropped the ball on coordinating new pattern dances from partial step sequences, perhaps a new, CONSISTENT system can be implemented, where in alternating years there is a PATTERNED short dance (see above) and on the off years there is a COMPULSORY short dance, where skaters are not assigned a pattern, but rather key points which they must incorporate into one or two Pattern Dance Type Step Sequence:

Replacing sections 1 and 2 above, 1PSt incorporates KP 1-4 and 2PSt has an alternative set of key points. Examples below:

KP 1 is a turn cluster: RBO Rocker, RFOIO, RFO Counter, RBO-LFI S-Step (Chocktaw)

KP 2 is a turn to skating position: LFO Rocker, LBOI to both partners in difficult skating positions (e.g. spread eagle, besti squat, spiral, hydroblade, lunge, side lunge, shoot the duck, etc.) on any edge

KP 3 is step based: 5 different chasses, progressives, or slip steps while doing 3 changes of hold to non-baseline holds (cannot do just tango or killian, has to be crossed or high killian, reverse foxtrot, a difficult hand-to-hand, or another creative variation)

KP 4 is synchronicity based, skaters must execute the corresponding turns: Partner A does LBI Counter to LFIO 3turn to LBI bracket while partner B does LFO counter to LBOI to LBI Bracket.

These turns would rotate every year and the tempo range would be decided based on the theme. Of course, these are only suggestions, but this technical apples-to-apples comparison might be helpful when using a decade theme like the 70s which covers such a diversity of sounds that establishing a pattern to suit the overall vibe of the decade might be difficult. I do think it would be helpful if the ISU established a general direction for how the original/short/rhythm dance is going to evolve with time.

But for overall changes? The Scale of Values needs a major makeover.

Scoring Shenanigans

Ice Dance scoring needs to be re-vamped. One of the most important parts of making figure skating scoring accessible to the public is the ability for the general viewer to discern "tiers" of scoring: e.g. what range do medalists vs. top 10 vs. top 20 teams score? With current seemingly unending score inflation, in the last decade ice dance has gone from scores 70-77 placing top 3 in the short program to scores 87-93. From 2011-2014, almost without exception the top two scores were 73-77, third rounded out in that low 70s range, and 60 points was essentially the cut off for top 10 scores. There was consistency from season-to-season that was understandable for both the general viewer and an avid ice dance fan. From 2016-17 to 2022-23, the top score in the rhythm dance went from 82 to 93. In fact, there was more consistency from 2017 Worlds to 2019 Euros top scores (82 to 83) with an entire revamp of the GOE system and rhythm dance composition than there was from the 2018-19 GP season through the 2022 Worlds (P/C led the field for both, scoring 84.13 at 2018 GPFrance and then 92.73 at 2022 Worlds). That doesn't even cover the changes over this past season. With the retirement of the undisputed top 3 teams from last quad, the RD record was still broken yet again at last Worlds! And this is despite constant downgrades in the technical robusticity of elements over the past decade and a half. This is even more obvious in the free dance, where top teams have gone from scoring 105 points to 140 points in just a decade.

We heard a lot of arguments last Worlds and WTT that the changes to the code merited a new world record in the RD after widespread disbelief that such a recent, and authoritative world record was broken. But despite the fact that I don't think a single person who regularly watches ice dance could argue that Chock/Bates this season ever out-executed (or even comparably-executed) Papadakis/Cizeron on Pattern Dance Type Step Sequences, a typical Style B step sequence, or twizzles. Much less teams like Hubbell/Donohue or Sinitsina/Katsalapov who never broke 90 points internationally. Yet, at World Team Trophy, C/B were awarded the same unweighted GOE +4.85 as P/C for their twizzles. C/B most definitely benefited from a weaker code, getting 9.07 free points for a ChRS (7.07 in GOE) which inched across the ice as opposed to a level 4 Midnight Blues pattern which earned just 1.72 points more (3.44 in GOE), but this rampant inflation can be accounted for in both recency bias in the retirement of top teams and in a warped scale of values.

Nowhere is this warped scale of values more apparent than for current Style D pattern dance type step sequences, where skaters who execute just two difficult turns/steps each earn, are rewarded more heavily than for any other element in the RD. Why on earth does an element where each skater only has TWO DIFFICULT STEPS AND TURNS merit 9.45 points base value, 15 points with +5 GOE? Style B step sequences where each skater has over twice the technical content have 8.96 base value, 14 points with +5 GOE. One foot sequences in the free dance with +5 GOE max out at 9.68. It is the ice dance equivalent of a double axel being valued more than a quadruple jump.

The ISU needs a return to baseline, wherever that threshold is decided to be, where scoring tiers can yet again be defined and the scale of values can be retroactively revamped according to difficulty and weighting of each element in a program. Because the current system? Feels a whole lot like this.

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