Every time the Olympics take place, I always get into a certain argument with my family or friends. Namely, that of whether or not the Olympics should contain dance. The answer, I thought, was most certainly! It’s simple enough: if figure skating and gymnastics can be in the Olympics, then why not dance? After all, they’re just—in my clearly not at all biased opinion—less pretty types of dance.
If it’s a matter of being too subjective, then so is figure skating (Not to mention rhythmic gymnastics and ice dancing, but I didn’t know about those back then). If it’s about not being athletic enough, that’s just bogus. If it’s a matter of there being too many types of dance, then they can just put ballet in: it has an incredibly strict set of techniques and rules, unlike hip-hop (probably; I’ve never done hip-hop), and besides, it’s somehow become basically universal.
But after the recent debacle of the Russian skaters at the Olympics, I’m honestly glad that dance is not in the Olympics. Though I’m not the first, the most interested, or even at all qualified to speak about that event, I’m going to do so anyway.
The thing is, now, when I think of figure skating, I think of those three Russian girls in Beijing: the champion, sitting alone; the runner-up, furious; and a child younger than me sobbing her heart out, trapped in a doping scandal. Three wonderful skaters brought to misery on the stage of what should be their greatest triumph. I think of Eteri Tutberidze, lauded as the world’s best coach two years ago despite her damaging training methods. And I think that, if she and her conveyor belt of ever-younger champions is the herald of the future of female figure skating (for it can hardly be considered “women’s” figure skating anymore), well then. Damn.
For such a beautiful sport to be reduced to that terrible event in my (and likely many others’) mind is an honest travesty. And even after this all blows over (if it ever truly can, on stage at the Olympics as it was), the legacy it represents will live on. The legacy, that is, of winning no matter what, at the cost of frickin’ children’s wellbeing; that of a competition of who can jump most, of who can be the lightest, of who can suffer through the most dangerous, painful falls.
No friggin’ thank you.
Honestly? I blame the artform’s current state (for that’s what it should be: an artform) on the Olympics. I blame it on their scoring methods, which place jumps above all else, rewarding the 3 Ultra C jumps regardless of form or aesthetics—and, subsequently, the damaging methods, both mentally and physically, that Eteri Tutzberidze and other similar coaches employ. I blame it on the stage it proffers, upon which certain countries can enact out their Cold War-esque rivalries to their heart’s content with no regard for the people actually winning the competition for them.
So if keeping dance from the Olympics can keep it from deteriorating the way women’s figure skating has these past few years, then keeping dance from the Olympics is what we should do.
Probably, the Olympics is likely far from the only, perhaps even the main, reason that figure skating has become what it is now. But humanity is all about shifting blame and finding scapegoats, so that is what I’ll continue doing until I find some better way.
And humanity is also all about hope and improvement. Thus, though I know there must certainly be similar destructive elements in dance as there are in figure skating, I am (not wilfully ignorant) a dreamer, willing, hoping, to see only the beauty. Though I’m absolutely over-idealizing the dance field, leave me to my blissful idealization.
And who knows? Perhaps in a few years, figure skating will improve as gymnastics did (somewhat) with additional regulations, and dance in the Olympics will be a worthy goal once more.
My research for this involved an essay on YouTube and many, many videos of ice skating and rhythmic gymnastics. It was absolutely productive, thank you very much.