It’s possible to argue that no dance genre more seriously underpins ice dance than ballet. For as much as the discipline’s social and competitive roots align with those of ballroom dance, ballet is a conventional element of figure skating education as a whole. Lines, general carriage and upper body movement translate fairly fluidly from the floor to the ice.
It’s also then an interesting exercise to consider how ballet has itself been directly referenced within ice dance — and examples might be less prevalent than expected. Because the idea of ballet, especially in its more contemporary form — port de bras, positioning, a certain perceived quality of soft lyricism — is so utterly ingrained, it would be too facile to argue that lyrical ice dance programs are themselves somehow demonstrations of ballet. Ballet as a form of dance on floor — neoclassical, contemporary, modern, romantic — is basically united by a commitment at base to a shared language of technique. For this writer, then, what might truly define ballet on ice would be a program as crafted by a choreographer with a pure understanding of ballet technique, executed by skaters with above-average knowledge and comfort with said technique. This definition makes actual on-ice ballet very much the exception rather than rule…
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