Belita--The Forgotten Skater

In the 30's and 40's figure skating, particularly show skating, was the rage. At one point there were so many ice shows (many in theaters and night clubs) that skating clubs had trouble finding coaches to teach. Part of the appeal of skating in that era may have been that women did not wear slacks, and their skirts went below the knee. Figure skating with its exposure of long legs and costume 'underpinnings' must have been pretty exciting back then to men who didn't have the kind of access to pictures of scantily clad women that exists today.

Sonja Henie was a name that is still remembered, but the voluptuous Belita (who has mostly passed from public memory) held her own in the public eye for several years. Unlike Sonja, Belita didn't run her own career, didn't like to skate, and left the business as soon as she could.

What she left behind are some film clips of some beautiful show skating from a different era. She was a trained ballerina, and came into skating with that mindset. She seems to have had about a dozen strong skills, mostly spins and spirals. Her candlestick spiral is notable.

Skating technique has changed in the last 60 years, and she was skating on stages so you won't see any spectacular jumps. In the language of my youth, she was 'built'. Belita specialized in 's.e.x', she used her body like a telegraph to send male viewers the message "I'm what you want. But boys, I'm a wild ride."

There's actually a full movie (Silver Skates) with her (and several other skaters of the 40's) on NETFLIX, so you can see her acting too. My advice, scroll through to get to the skating scenes, plot and acting; not much.

Fortunately, there's some videos of her on youTube. In this one from the movie SUSPENSE she's skating a performance in a 'bad girl' role. I believe her partner is the late Gene Turner (US Men's Champion 40 & 41). He partnered her in Silver Skates as well.

In this bit from Silver Skates she's a little tease, especially at 1:30 and beyond. The candlestick spiral at 1:10 makes me wince at how close she goes to the scenery. This was a WWII picture, hence the battleship scenery.

And if you're into some slightly more risque' costumes, there's always the borderline dominatrix look in the number below. Who knew the 40's were so naughty?

 But for pure skating, this performance from Suspense shows her in her best light. From an artistic perspective I think this is beautifully shot, especially in the camera coverage.

 Let me say that if I ever do a program I'm going to do my darnedest to replicate that dress!

The Circle Dance--a Little Skating History

[So I've written about Fitness Skate and I've briefly mentioned how I'm working on some notation to help me 'debug' footwork for something like a Fitness Skate; today I wanted to give a little Ice Dance history as to how I came up with some of my ideas.]

A long time ago, before even I was born, ice rinks didn't come in standard sizes. They didn't even come in standard shapes. Some were open air rinks on ponds, other were indoors. In that era (the era of my 90 year old mother's childhood) many dances were circle dances. There were also dances in the shapes of 8s, and a couple of pattern dances as we know them today, but I want to focus on the circle dance.

In the circle dance, when the music began, the skaters started wherever they were on the ice and fit the dance in. The idea of a modern pattern dance, where the skater is at a particular reference point, with a particular step, was unknown. In social dance skating on the beat was not a priority. Rinks were so crowded that people skated where they could, maneuvering around other skaters by holding a step or adding extra steps to avoid traffic, until they could get back 'on the pattern'.

What ice dance may have been like before pattern dances

This struck me as an ideal way for beginner skaters to have something nice to do on the ice. It's just a circular series of steps to music without the obsessive fuss of 'OMG, you're not on the beat!' or 'OMG, your swingroll doesn't have enough extension!', or 'OMG, you don't have dance expression!' or 'OMG! I HAVE TO STOP THE DANCE BECAUSE THERE'S AN ICE TOURIST IN THE WAY!' or 'OMG! I don't have enough power to get in the corners!'

Sadly, these dances disappeared with the standardization of ice dances as pattern dances and the advent of ice dance testing on an industrial scale in the 40's. 

Testing in its own way is a fun challenge, but there's no reason there can't be 'fun dances' as well that could be done by couples or solo skaters on public. No pressure about precise placement of the steps relative to the rink, no worry about extension, or putting in an extra stroke to work around traffic, or worrying about some judge. They should be fun!

So I pulled out my copy of The History of Ice Dance, and started looking at some of the circle dance patterns to see what I could use. Two problems emerged:

1. In the old days, people had skated figures for a while before taking up ice dance. They could do rockers, brackets, and counters, so many dances had these in them. I wanted to find some dances or footwork suitable for beginners on public. *cough, Me, cough*
2. The diagrams often had notation that no longer made sense. Ye Gods! What's a "FIOB"? A 'forward inside outside bracket'?  And the drawings were so tiny or such poor resolution I couldn't always figure out the steps from the tracings.

What I took from the diagrams were three facts: since the dances were circular, it wasn't necessary to draw the tracings in a rink shape, the dance patterns instead were in a straight line. Secondly,  what I really wanted to do was to develop footwork that could be 'done' to music of any beat, really just footwork for the solo beginner, that might also be done by a pair hand in hand or killian position. Third, I wanted something simple enough for beginners like myself, or adults that want to do something on public for fitness that's easy enough to do, but more complex than just stroking around.

And whatever these steps/footwork are, they should be able to be skated to any rhythm (tango, 4/4 rock/pop music, or the rare waltz on public) without any need for obsessing about placement on the ice. Don't have enough power to do a pattern in a big circle, do it in a small circle.  Don't like the music? Don't worry about the beat!

I don't have to worry about fussy ice dance crap? Woohoo!

I asked around a little, and pretty much if I wanted some footwork or circle dances, I had to come up with them myself. That lead me to thinking about notation and how I'd show it or record it for myself.

So, that's where I am, working on notation and simple footwork ideas. I'll introduce the notation soon and show some footwork patterns / a dance and get some feed back from you.

Tomorrow is a funny post, see you then!