Monday, February 20, 2006

Artistic Interpretation

I'll give the BBC one thing about their Olympic coverage: when the Ice Dance compulsory skate was underway, the Italian couple came in first. The commentators didn't agree, and said: "There may be a new marking system, but it's still ice dancing." Brilliant. It almost makes up for the fact that they keep interviewing the British ice dancing couple who have annoying Scottish accents and totally bug me.

One other thing bugs me about ice dancing in this Olympics: the costumes. Is it just me, or are they getting worse and worse? Since so much of ice dancing is based on artistic impression, musical interpretation and overall performance, in my opinion, the costumes count. I think there should be a costume judge - there are plenty of qualified people with taste out there, and there should be deductions for tacky costumes. Just like when someone falls, the overall performance is diminished, so too when the team is wearing what seems to be Henry VIII on acid.

In fact, I think this should be implemented across all figure skating disciplines.

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