Ice dance

Ice dance is a figure-skating discipline in which couples perform choreographed dances on ice. It emphasizes musical timing, intricate footwork, and interpretation rather than jumps and throws.

Compulsory dance: A set pattern of steps and turns performed to prescribed music by all competitors. The shared pattern tests precision and timing before free-form choreography.
ISU Judging System: The International Skating Union’s framework for scoring figure-skating performances by technical and component criteria. It governs how ice-dance elements and overall program quality receive points.
Pair skating: A figure-skating discipline in which a man and a woman perform together, including throws, lifts, and side-by-side jumps. Pair skating shares partnered performance but allows more acrobatic elements than ice dance.
Jackson Haines: An American figure skater who helped popularize expressive, music-accompanied skating in nineteenth-century Europe. His dance-inspired style contributed to the foundations of modern ice dance.
Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean: British ice dancers who won Olympic gold in 1984 with a celebrated program to Ravel’s Boléro. Their Olympic performance exemplifies musical interpretation as a defining strength of ice dance.
Rhythm dance: An ice-dance segment built around a specified musical rhythm and required elements. It gives each season’s competition a common musical and technical framework.
Grade of Execution: A score adjustment reflecting the quality with which a judged skating element is performed. Judges reward or penalize execution beyond the element’s base value.
Single skating: A figure-skating discipline in which one skater performs technical elements and choreography individually. Its jumps and spins contrast with ice dance’s partnered footwork and musical phrasing.
Compulsory figures: Prescribed tracings skated on clean edges and curves, once a major part of figure-skating competition. Their eventual removal shifted competitive emphasis toward performed programs, including ice dance.
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir: Canadian ice dancers and three-time Olympic champions, known for technical precision and expressive programs. Their career illustrates the discipline’s blend of athletic difficulty and theatrical interpretation.

Linked from 9 pages