Monday, February 20, 2006
Cha Cha Go Boom Boom
I'd heard a lot about all the spills that took place on Olympic ice during the original ice dance competition Sunday night before watching my recording today (yes, I do have a social life), but nothing prepared me for the sad spectacle of seasoned skaters falling on moves I remember doing with my sister in the front yard when we were kids--grab an ankle and arm, and spin your partner 'round! We're not talking quadruple toe loops here or anything. I think this is the evidence we need to finally put ice dancing to rest as a serious competition sport. They can twizzle till they sizzle a hole in the ice, but the whole ice dancing scene, as I've said before, peaked with Torvill and Dean, then stagnated in a mire of increasingly difficult moves and astoundingly bad taste. Even without the falls, the original dance competition would have been a questionable way to spend valuable viewing time. The choice of the Latin theme, to begin with, promises plenty of cheesy cha cha moves and gives the already super-trampy ice queens even more of an excuse to show as much skin as possible. All that tackiness I can deal with if the skating's up to par, but it just isn't. It looks manic and sketchy at its best (sometimes I think all ice dancers must be crackheads), and the falls last night made it pure travesty. I'll be watching the dance free skate tonight more out of ironic amusement than pure interest. And I guess there's some kind of cockeyed value in that.
