There are lots of exciting sports in the winter Olympics. Though I did not get to watch much of them being at school this year, ice skating has always been one of my favorites. Perhaps because it is very similar to dance, I always loved watching the couples dangerously twirling on the ice. Ice skating and ice dancing, though different in many ways, are similar in that dance serves as a foundation for these entertaining and challenging Olympic sports- dance in deep freeze!
I have to admit that before I wrote this post, I didn’t even know that there was a difference between ice skating and ice dancing. Ice skating involves more of the traditional figure skating techniques and moves that have been on the ice for centuries. On the other hand, ice dancing is a specific discipline of figure skating with heavy influence from ballroom dance techniques. Ice dancing was added to the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and first appeared in the Winter Olympics in 1976. One main difference between ice skating and ice dancing is the lifting techniques. Ice skating requires traditional throws and spins that you probably picture when you think of figure skating. In contrast, throws and jumps are not allowed in ice dancing! Instead, dancers must perform dance lifts (ballroom lifts) on the ice. Rules for dance lifts require that the man never extends his arms above his shoulders. Dancers must also spin around the same axis i.e. as a pair if they want to add turns to their routine. In addition, dancers can never be more than two arm’s length apart, and should remain connected throughout most of the piece. Another major difference between ice dancing and figure skating is the use of music in the routines. In ice dancing, as is typical in all other styles of dance, the music must have a consistent beat and the dancers must dance one the beat. In figure skating, skaters are free to dance with the lyrics even if they are off beat. In the Olympics for example, dancing off beat results in a deduction of points for ice dancers’ scores. Even ice dancers’ skates are an inch shorter than those of ice skaters.
American ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White won a historic gold medal for team USA in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics- the first gold in ice dancing the US has ever earned. The pair have been dancing together since the age of 10. Sixteen years of training later, their routine in Sochi earned them a world record 192.5 points and the gold medal! They performed a difficult dance routine to a Russian-composed song, a choice their Russian coach knew would go over well with the crowd in the arena.
The Olympic routine is not available on youtube, but to give you an idea of their ice dancing capabilities, the following video is of the 2014 US Nationals. The routine performed in the video won the pair a perfect score!
interesting post! I had no clue what the differences between the two sports are, so thanks for all the information.
I love ice dancing. I actually prefer to watch ice dancing over pairs figure skating. In my opinion, it looks harder to do the intricate foot work of ice dancing than the throwing in figure skating. When I started to watch the Olympics this year I had to look up what the difference between ice dancing and ice skating was because I had no idea either.