My complaint:
I wanted to express my views about Dancing on Ice. I have watched this season’s programme with great interest, but have to own to being somewhat disappointed.
I admire the skaters Torville and Dean and I feel they rightly have a place on any Judges’ Panel. They obviously understand the degrees of difficulty of the moves being performed on ice. I gather that Ashley is also trying to learn more about the technical side. However I do disagree with Christopher’s comment re the contestants at the start of the programme, when he said that the professional dancers among them had no advantage over the other stars, as they all have to learn to skate on the ice. This particular fact is true, but what the professionals dancers already have through their discipline, is a strong central body core, a sense of roomrink space, awareness of the shape their bodies make in that space (basic deportment), a great sense of balance, the experience of being liftedlifting, how to use their limbsbody to enhance expression. They already have these skills developed, whereas actors, presenters, cyclists, pop singers and sportsmen have to develop allmost of this from scratch. It is not a level playing field!
I feel sorry for all the stars who worked for so long and with such dedication and made such tremendous progress, whilst it was obvious from the first programme who the 3 finalists would be – because they were starting from an advantageous position. Yes, they are all 3 good, but it would have been more refreshing to see at least one of the underdogs make it into the final, whereas I feel it was rather a waste of time and effort for all the other contestants. We could have gone from the first to the last programme in one week! When half the judges are professional dancers, it seems silly to say that there is no advantage to being a professional dancer!!! Your dance trainingknowledge gives you all the necessary basic skills that most others do not have – otherwise you should not be in a position of judgement on dancing, but likewise, by accepting you have the skills above, you are also accepting that professional dancers do have an immediate advantage before they even get on to the ice.
Suggested solution:
Have competitions solely between dance professionals or amateur skaters, but mixing dance professionals with complete amateurs in the field is grossly unfair, especially considering the time and effort necessarily put in to the activity.
