It does for me which is why I think I love it so much. I live on an island nation and the ocean is such a powerful force here both in nature and livelihood.
That's great. Personally, I love water. I live in an area with a big bay and an ocean and I swim and kayak. I'm just not getting water from their dance though.
Annisina and Peizerat's Romeo and Juliet was a choreographic masterpiece with 5 short lifts (some by her which we loved). No twizzles, no slides, no designated choreo step sequence on the short axis - IJS has not made ice dance better.
Maybe. Maybe not.
People tend to compare the best of the best in the past against the entire field. There was plenty of schlock in the pre-IJS days. And forgettable programs.
The change from OSPs to ODs to RDs has definitely made that aspect of ice dance worse IMO. I am okay with not having OSPs anymore, even though I loved them and they were a way to get new Compulsory Dances. But ODs were too much like mini FDs with a theme, from what I remember. I think the RDs
could work. But not in the form they have been in recent years. So maybe going back to OSPs is the answer. Or maybe it's going back to having a prescribed pattern (from a CD) in the RDs and even possibly having them have real rhythms again.
If having 20 teams all skate to the same rhythm is deemed too boring by TPTB, teams could have several to pick from. For example, have 50s & 60s as the theme but then the rhythm has to be one that was popular during that time period. So teams can pick any combination of jive, jitterbug, swing in all its forms (East Coast, West Coast, Chalypos, etc), whatever you'd call dances like the Twist, Watusi and Mashed Potato (they all have a similar style IMO), and probably some I'm forgetting.
This would be "dancier" than just picking a time period. Hopefully.
And maybe that's what they tried to do with adding "Dance Party" to the 90s theme. But it didn't work. The 120 bpm requirement doesn't help. But I also think "90s Dance Party" is too restrictive. How about "Dance Party" with no decade requirement? Or more decades than one? That would work better IMO.
Having said that I am starting to agree more with the current form in regards to the choreo elements. My understanding was these elements were added in lieu of others because skaters/coaches were complaining that there was no time left in the previous iteration to do any choreography. So this seemed a sound compromise at the time.
I think having 1 or even 2 slots for choreo elements would be fine. All the other disciplines have the Choreo Seq 1. So dance having 2 such things makes sense to me. All the rest should be transitions, just like in all the other disciplines. And if they just
have to have seven slots, add in another step sequence or something else "dance-y".
The problem I see with R&J is because they were teenagers everyone believes it should be skated by young skaters and preferably when they are still Juniors or only in the first year in Seniors. And I think that overwhelming opinion has prevented certain teams I would have loved to see tackle that story to Prokofiev's music. I fear I will never get what I want when it comes to this
I am pretty sure more mature people have done R+J. Hubble and Donahue did an R+J program and they were mature skaters. Yuzuru did one too (and won an Olympic title with it). And this doesn't include Dorothy Hamill/Robin Cousins doing the entire story as an ice skating TV special.
Much more creative than the standard R&J ending of Juliet collapsing into Romeo's arms.
