Compulsory dances

Compulsory dances, now called pattern dance in ice dancing, are a part of ice dancing and artistic roller skating in which all the couples or solo dancers perform the same standardized steps and holds to music of a specified tempo and genre. One or more compulsory dances were usually skated as the first phase of ice dancing competitions. The 2009-10 season was the final season in which the segment was competed in ISU junior and senior level competition. In June 2010, the International Skating Union replaced the name "compulsory dance" with "pattern dance" for ice dancing, and merged it into the short dance beginning in the 2010–2011 figure skating season. Compulsory dances are still skated in international roller skating competitions, however as in ice skating, a new section called the Style Dance was introduced from the 2015/16 season alongside the standard compulsory dances and freedance categories. The style dance is very similar in structure to the short dance on ice.

Compulsory dances are also popular as a form of recreational or social dance among skaters, especially on ice. An example is the Recreational Ice Dance League (RIDL) in Great Britain.

The patterns for most dances either cover one-half or one full circuit of the rink. The International Skating Union (ISU) and the Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS) publish the step diagrams and descriptions of the dances that are competed internationally, and also provides a set of standard music recordings for each dance with uniform tempo and introductory phrasing for use in competition.

The dances that have been performed in junior and senior international competition include:

The American Waltz, European Waltz, Fourteenstep, and Kilian (a march) date back to the early days of figure skating. Several of the compulsory dances were first performed by dancers in the United Kingdom in the 1930s. Others were adapted from original dances performed after that segment was added to dance competitions in the 1960s. For example, the Golden Waltz, considered the most complex and challenging of the compulsory dances, was adapted from the original set pattern performed by Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko in the 1987 season.

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