The Sociology of Ice Dancers

My mother received a Masters Degree in sociology after she became a grandmother. After years of learning about the world of figure skating from a parent's point of view, she wrote the following for a term paper about the sociological makeup of ice dancers:

An Excerpt From: AMATEUR FIGURE SKATING - A Non-Geographic Community by Edith K. Schneider

Ice dancers: Dancers, as they are called, are an interesting subgroup, and they themselves can be divided into two further groupings:

The typical dancer begins figure skating as a young adult. The dancers refer to the mysterious (to many of them) world of the serious skater, as that of the "free-stylists." They often become enthusiastic members of the highly knowledgeable "fans," who attend competitions and applaud with vigor the accomplishment of successful execution of double and triple and even quadruple revolution jumps. Many become skating judges, and as permanent members of skating clubs, provide stability across time for the organizational aspects of skating. Some advance and become officials at the highest levels of skating organization. At the local level, adult dancers have tests and competitions and many take it all very seriously. Many others do it just for fun. A goal of some of the most dedicated social dancers is to progress in the test structure. This represents an enormous effort, and many skate daily and have many lessons with accomplished dance coaches.

Competitive dancers relate to both the serious skaters and to the social dancers. Competitive dancers characteristically begin as children in singles skating, and move into ice dancing as teenagers. Because of the need to find practice facilities they often train along with the social dancers, providing these offshoots of the serious group an opportunity to interface with an entirely different group of skaters who are little known to most of the serious skater group.

Further Reading

• About Ice Dancing
• Become an Ice Dancer
• "Learn to Ice Dance" an Instructional DVD Review
• Tom McHugh - Adult Ice Dancer
• Compulsory Ice Dances
• Elements of an Ice Dancing Free Dance
• Ice Dance Weekends
• What is Social Ice Dancing?

_{Ice Dancers - Photo Courtesy of Ice Dancers OnLine}