Tango on ice

Last night was the first night of the ice dance at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. It was the compulsary dance where all couples would do the same routine to the same music. Must have been mad for the audience, and perhaps the judges, listening to the same tune at least 20 times!

Normally, I wouldn’t watch the ice dance competition. I prefer the figure skating because of the throws and jumps. Ironic since I love dancing. Anyway, the compulsary routine for this Olympics was titled “Tango Romantica” – inspired by, as the name implies, tango. This prompted me to watch the performances. Luckily, and thankfully, the BBC only showed about 6 couples, which included the 2 couples from America, 1 from Russia, 1 from Italy and 1 from Great Britain. As mentioned in the beginning, all couples performed the same routine to the same music.

Since tango’s basic step is the walk and this is usually projected as if you were gliding on the floor, I thought that dancing it on skates, whether on ice or not, would be fantastic. But since the skates really makes one glide, it is challenging to put on staccato movements. I know I could be mistaken here but watching the ice dancers, I really didn’t see anyone put on accents to their steps and with tango, this is quite basic. All except the Russian couple, Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin. Not only did they look the part (although that backwards in front jacket for Oksana was a bit questionable) but to me, they rendered the tango quite beautifully and the closest to the dance itself. It wasn’t a surprise, therefore, that the judges gave them the highest marks of 43.76.

Oksana and Maxim from Russia | Photo credit: YURI KADOBNOV/AFP/Getty Images

Perhaps it was just my expectations of the dance and not the dance on ice so I may be completely wrong. What about you? Did you see the dances? Who is your favourite?