by Jacquelyn Thayer
Adapted and updated from previous posts on Step Sequences.
For an erratic and irregular season, marked by intermittent competition and frequent COVID-related event cancellations, the ISU sagely allowed ice dancers to repeat the 2019-20 season’s rhythm dance pattern, the fan favorite Finnstep.
The pattern, as its name suggests, takes off from the quickstep — in this case, the 1994-95 Original Set Pattern from Finland’s Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko’s based on the style. It is far more boisterous and open than either a compulsory or Standard ballroom quickstep, but also carries through some degree of the latter’s spirit and technical nuance:
Consider, for example, the very familiar sequence from about 0:43 through 0:55 alongside the run from 1:46 through 1:52 in this quickstep video. The holds vary, the quickstep incorporates more turn, but the approach of the footwork is comparable. What is attempted on ice with the Finnstep’s deliberate hops and short steps versus more sustained blade runs can be taken as an authentic attempt at translating quickstep.
So a word on quickstep itself. The style is of the Jazz Age, having developed from the foxtrot, as well as the Charleston and other vernacular dances of the 1920s. Some historical detail is offered here, while this page provides a solid breakdown of the style from a technical angle. Speaking in the most general sense, the dance is marked by the pace and patterns of its footwork, including elements like hops, runs, and kicks, and a basis in syncopation — another legacy of its jazz heritage.
And per that background, in 2013-14, the Finnstep could be paired with a range of related dance styles — foxtrot, Charleston, swing. And within those constraints, a handful of teams elected to go the route of theatrical ballroom, utilizing selections and stylings from classic musicals of the mid-twentieth century. These approaches were performance-oriented, a little old-fashioned, and very American — even while executed by Canadian and Italian duos.
There might be no better point of reference for the style considered here than the enduring efforts of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, whose frequent on-screen partnership throughout the 1930s in particular essentially defined the classic dance film, courtesy of numbers like “Pick Yourself Up” from Swing Time:
While their film career brought their styles of popular performance dance and theatrically-inflected ballroom — along with the debut or popularization of classic songs from composers like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin — to a far wider audience than stage alone ever could, they were also able to use film to their own advantage. While, of course, the closeness of camera and size of screen help foster both an intimacy and grandeur less easily accessed in live performance, Astaire took pains to instill one key component of live performance to the realm of filmed dance: the single-shot dance sequence, with cameras capturing one performance in full, cut-free and focused as far as possible on capturing the whole movement of bodies. This certainly, in its way, draws a bit of a link between Astaire & Rogers and the efforts of our ice dancers, though, sadly, most event cameras have failed to adhere to their own clean, seamless, dancers-in-full-view half of the bargain.
And in a more fortuitously direct segue to the short dance topic at hand, Rogers was actually introduced to a wide audience via the lead role in George & Ira Gershwin’s 1930 debut of Girl Crazy, a production on which Astaire assisted in choreographic instruction. The show was later revised and revived in 1992 as Crazy for You, from which the music for Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam’s short dance was drawn.
It should be noted that while their program takes from a theatrical score, it does not draw from the musical’s book, and this 1992 Kennedy Center Honors performance of “I Got Rhythm” also points up the distinction between approaches — the rousing and rustic group number and the typically elegant duet. But if the couple’s interpretation does not derive from its strict source material, the extroversion of its expression and the outward-orientation of movement do point to its tackling a more theatrical than ballroom angle — and an alternate category of source material might be considered. Take a look again at moments 0:54-1:03 and 2:19-2:30 in the short dance above and then take a gander at 1:00-1:15 in this particular number of legend:
Too, the choreographic aesthetic of Roberta‘s “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” is a little like the midline writ large, while 1:28 offers a passing resemblance to the short dance’s opening sequence, 1:35 to end pose, and other moments throughout simply suggesting a spiritual kinship.
Film and theatre have an interesting marriage where the short dance source material for two of the world’s top ten teams is concerned. 42nd Street, the centerpiece of programs for both Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje and Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte, made its mark as a major theatrical musical in 1980, but drew as its inspiration the 1933 musical film of the same name (which, it may as well be noted, included among its cast Ginger Rogers). As befitting a Depression-era performance dance piece, tap plays a central stylistic role in both productions, though staging is a rather different story. Take this performance of the title number, featuring the cast of its 2001 revival:
Though a group number, its sensibility can be compared readily enough to Weaver & Poje’s program, for which the team worked closely with actor and choreographer Geoffrey Tyler. Their take, while more both more abstract and condensed than a musical’s number, interprets a storyline loosely based on the musical’s themes and works in a few clever moments of tap-inspired ice work at 0:56 and variously from 2:06-2:23:
(As a further note, consider also lead Kate Levering’s dress from the 2001 performance above and the number worn by Weaver in the team’s first outing at the U.S. International Skating Classic.)
While the two are excellent actors, Cappellini and Lanotte’s program, for its part, relies in movement terms more on a standard ice dance vernacular than a clear intent to play off of the theatrical vocabulary. Beginning at 2:45, however, there are a few key moments that tip the hat in their own way to tap:
Cappellini & Lanotte do draw things somewhat full circle with their choice in costumes, which evoke less a show-biz number and more the street scene that comprises the original film’s take on “42nd Street” — along with a gritty pre-Hays Code streak most definitely not apparent in either ice dance program:
Was it the success of efforts like these and others in the Finnstep’s first go-round that led the ISU to actually mandate musical theater selections for the 2019-20 rhythm dance? One could never say; however, what is sure is that creating such an obligation resulted in far less adherence to the standard. Many teams paired cuts from unconnected musicals, or one theatrical selection and one standard; some relied on the original album versions of songs from jukebox musicals; and in other cases, the sheer definition of “musical” has been stretched beyond what most film and theater critics would be comfortable allowing. And some programs — like Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron’s Fame or Olivia Smart and Adria Diaz’s Grease — are strikingly faithful to their source material, but stylistically, less natural fits for a traditional quickstep. The flexibility is all within the letter of the ISU’s law, but has also made those more old-fashioned interpretations the more notable this time around.
Russia’s Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, for example, pay effective tribute to Gene Kelly’s “Singing in the Rain” number from the film of the same name.
The umbrella mimicry at program’s beginning is an obvious lift from the film, but the side-by-side step sequence also delivers familiar twirls — as well as a spot of quickstep — and the emphasis on knee action within and after the Pattern Dance Type steps evokes the original’s style. While much of the loose, spontaneous Charleston-esque choreography of Kelly’s original solo would translate poorly to the ice, Katsalapov’s bearing in particular evokes that sense of carefree spontaneity.
And as with 2013’s dueling 42nd Streets, this second (and third) Finnstep go-round delivered a “Too Darn Hot” rivalry, featuring the best-known number from Kiss Me, Kate. And as in 2013, film and Broadway revival have each offered themselves as potential source material.
Madison Chock’s costume certainly bears some connection, deliberate or not, to Ann Miller’s from 1953’s Kiss Me, Kate; it’s fitting, then, that she and Evan Bates tackle a vampish, tap-inspired approach to the song not unlike the film’s:
Kiss Me, Kate saw a well-timed Broadway revival in 2019, and the tie-in to Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko’s rhythm dance is obvious at first glance (and listen):
But beyond the superficial, note as well the youthfulness of this group number; the snappiness and swinging quality are present throughout Carreira and Ponomarenko’s program, but especially in the Pattern Type steps and onward. And both “Too Darn Hot” programs smartly use the song’s own musical build in the choreography, the movement exploding from required elements to freewheeling action in the home stretch.
Of course, any ice dance program is in its own way a small, often-filmed performance number, albeit one constrained by intricate rules and scored by panels of technical specialists and judges. This is even more true this season, as fans, barred from in-person attendance in most jurisdictions, must rely almost exclusively on video access. But a program that makes overt reference to its own performed nature creates particular challenges for any team taking it on. An introverted couple can find success by making connection its own projected element; natural showmen can carry off moves that could otherwise seem gimmicky in translation. And in the case of a short or rhythm dance, such an approach can offer an almost self-reflective take on obligatory movements — a miniature movie within a competition.