ON STEP SEQUENCES:
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 other styles, like waltz or the Latin dances, tango seems to inspire choreographers and skaters to a vintage tribute.
Our source is the tango that first developed in North America and Western Europe in the 1910s and ’20s. In the wake of its introduction by Vernon and Irene Castle, it would be popularized through Rudolph Valentino’s performance of an extremely stylized and less-than-authentic tango in 1921’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:
Continue reading on Step Sequences as we wrap our review of tango in ice dance — with a historical twist.