Figure and Fancy Skating, or the term “Fancy Skating” embodies the unlimited repertoire of Fancy Skating (with or without music) and the entire skating alphabet built from the prestigious patterns and knowledge of: Fundamental, Special, Creative, Free, Flying and Spinning Figure Artworks. Fancy Skating also includes Dancing on Ice, Continuous, and Team Fancy Skating because the patterns in skating all originate from the roots of Figure Artworks.
Fancy Skating is an Athletic Skating Art, built with the concepts of “figure” and “continuous skating,” with a rich tradition spanning generations and continents. Its development began in the 18th century when people in England first began skating for pleasure; and continued into the 19th and 20th century when it was practiced and promoted by luminaries such as George Meagher and Algernon Grosvenor in the 1890s, especially in Great Britain and North America. Fancy skating diminished in popularity in the face of efforts to turn figure skating into a sport, and was ultimately abandoned with the founding of the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA) in 1921. Fancy skating was revived beginning in 2015 with the founding of the World Figure Sport Society (WFS), and today this formerly lost art continues to evolve in the 21st century with a new generation of skating artists and spectators. Fancy Skating today is built around the principles of Figures and Continuous Skating.
What is a Figure?
Fancy Skating is built around the figure, or a named pattern of movement. Figures have been a prominent feature of folk and social dance in the British Isles since the time of Louis XIV; and when English people began skating for pleasure, they took the concept with them onto the ice. Similar to square dancing, English Country Dancing today, Combined Skating in 19th Century England involved a group of figures with a shared common repertoire of figures. A caller would tell the skaters which figures to execute next, resulting in a communal dance experience with emphasis on the patterns created by the relationships between skaters.
Skating is unique among other ways to dance because every movement results in a tracing on the ice. A duality developed between the act of performing a figure and the pattern left on the ice afterwards, with value placed on grace and carriage while performing the figure, and also the tracing left behind. Skaters would challenge each other to draw complex patterns on the ice, resulting in beautiful and intricate Figure Artwork such as the Panin Lake Special Figure. Spectators at today’s World Figure Sports Creative Figures events can watch skating artists create unique figure artwork before their eyes, and then marvel at the art left behind.
Figure Terminology
Figures today may be classified as Figures to Place or Figures in the Field.
- Figures to Place come from the tradition of English Style Skating in which skaters repeatedly return to a center marked in orange and precision in tracing and re-tracing the pattern on the ice is a primary goal. The best Fancy Skaters today, performing at competing at World Figure Sports events, can retrace complex figure artwork with centimeter precision.
- Figures in the Field (also called Free Figures) are figures that do not return to a center. Beauty and grace of performance is the primary goal, and the figure does not need to repeat in the same location. The Biberhofer Flying Figure is one example.
Fancy Skaters today practice both kinds of figures; and use them both in choreographed performances. Here is some more figure-related terminology:
- Fundamental Figures: Figures made of circles. For example, any figure with a “figure 8” pattern, the Quad Cupcake, and figures involving Loops. The circle is the most fundamental shape for skating because it is the result of holding still while gliding.
- Special Figures: Non-circular figures, for example the Maltese Cross. Special figures are based on fundamental figures because they are made almost entirely of circular arcs.
- Creative Figures: A unique figure created by an individual, for example Beacom Blossom (Gary Beacom, 2016).
- Figure Artwork: Art composed of tracings on the ice, for example Swans (Katherine Mangiardi, 2024).
- Flying Figures: Figures that involve “flying,” or jumps. Flying figures may be to place Braxel (Axel Paulsen, 1882) or in the field Bieberhofer Flying Figure (Bieberhoffer, 1882).
- Kicked Figures: Figures that involve the “kicking” of the free leg, typically to change direction while remaining on one foot. The Maltese Cross is one example. Kicked figures were most popular in 19th Century North America, but were also controversial because some felt they lacked grace in execution. Today kicked figures form a core part of World Figure Sport repertoire, with skate boarding and BMX Biking involving a similar aesthetic.
The following term are considered obsolete and not used by World Figure Sport:
School Figures Curriculum (also called Compulsory Figures): The ISU formed in 1892 with the goal of turning figure skating into a sport (“sportification”). Knowledge drawn from the highly developed Figure and Fancy Skating scenes in Great Britain and the Continent was simplified and standardized to create the emerging “International Style,” used as basis of International skating competitions. In 1897, Great Britain contributed a simplified set of figures to place for International competition, known as School Figures, with the goal of covering all skating technique (except kicked figures), described at the time as a “grammar” of figure skating. School Figures initially formed the core of ISU skating competitions and were valued for their many benefits in training of figures skaters. However, their importance in ISU competitions diminished through the 20th century. Unlike other aspects of the Sport of ISU Figure Skating, the School Figures curriculum remained unchanged or over 90 years from 1897 until they were abolished in 1990. The School Figures curriculum consists entirely of Fundamental Figures, all of which were practiced long before School Figures were standardized in 1897, and many of which are also included in the World Figure Sport curriculum today.
What is Continuous Skating?
Continuous skating is the technique of skating on one foot for long periods of time without losing speed. In order to do so, the figure skater must be skilled at pushing off the ice with one foot, finding and exploiting moments within each figure where this is possible. Continuous skating has long been an important part of Figure and Fancy Skating, and is an important technique used by Fancy Skaters to bring grace, beauty and transcendence to their Fancy Skating performances. Fancy Skaters in the past would challenge each other to feats of continuous skating, for example to write their names on the ice in cursive.
Continuous skating is no longer a feature of ISU competitions today; however, it is a core technique of Fancy Skating and it plays an outsize role in all World Figure Sport events. Examples of past continuous skating tour de force performances include Beacom Blossom (Gary Beacom, 2016) and Sarah Jo Damron-Brown’s 2024 Fancy Free Skate Program.
Putting it All Together: Fancy Skating
Fancy Skaters use all the above practices and others (most notably spins) to create transcendent choreographed presentations supported by flawless technique and exquisite form. Every edge, extension, nuance and expression must support the aesthetic chosen by the skating artist(s). Fancy Skating performances are pinnacle of the Art of Figure and Fancy Skating, and they may involve any number of Fancy Skaters. Although Solo Fancy Skating performances are most common today, Hand-in-Hand and Combined (group) skating were common in the past. Two excellent examples of Fancy Skating include Sarah Jo Damron-Brown’s 2024 Fancy Free Skate Program and After All (John Curry / Twila Tharp, 1980).
To the experienced figure skating spectator, Fancy Skating may look at first similar to modern ISU figure skating, but without the large jumps. Like anything else, it takes time to develop an eye for Fancy Skating. New spectators are encouraged to watch for the following principles of good Fancy Skating performance:
- Flow: Fancy Skating movements must flow seamlessly from one move and edge to the next, making it look effortless. This requires perfect balance on the blade at all times.
- Continuous Skating: The best Fancy Skating choreography involves multiple movement phrases, all on one foot, contributing to a sense of beautiful movement phrasing.
- Completion of Movements: Good Fancy Skating choreography provides opportunity for movements, once initiate, to finish. Circular figures complete the circle, on one foot on balance. Beautiful arabesque (and other) spiral positions are held long enough to create a spiral tracing on the ice. Fancy Skating performances are alive with breath resulting from a variety of movement dynamics.
- Figures to Place: Watch out for your favorite figures to place to be included in Fancy Skating presentations! They are often skated larger / faster than when practicing figures on their own.
- Flying Figures: Fancy Skating includes a wide variety of flying figures: flying 3-turns, flying counters… pretty much any figure can fly, with both forward and backward takeoffs and landings. Most flying figures are not amenable to being performed as large jumps with multiple revolutions; therefore, flying figures provide artistic choreographic options in-between ice level and large jumps. As with petite allegro in ballet, a Fancy Skating sequence consisting of multiple flying figures together in tempo could provide a challenge for the performer and thrill for the audience.
- Large Jumps: Although many of the six large jumps used today in the sport of figure skating were invented after Fancy Skating lost popularity, there is nothing preventing their inclusion in Fancy Skating performances today. But like everything else in Fancy Skating, form is paramount and they must be used in ways that contribute to the final art product. This would preclude many practices common today in ISU competition that sacrifice form for revolutions, for example two-foot Salchow jump take-offs, Lutz jumps with short / truncated takeoff edges and jumps with large chance of a fall. Donald Jackson’s Triple Lutz (1962) could work well in a Fancy Skating program because of its exquisite form and symmetrical large S shape created on the ice.
World Figure Sport: Art and Sport
Figure and Fancy Skating is, akin to dance, a technical and athletic performing art with aesthetic goals; and at times the visual art product left behind on the ice is also important. World Figure Sport supports Fancy Skating Artists as leaders and ambassadors who can use their skills to bring people together and bring positive change in their local communities worldwide. Skating Artists are encouraged to share their Fancy Skating in formal and informal ways; for example by sharing with others informally, teaching others, getting together with other Skating Artists, and skating in shows / exhibitions as opportunities become available. Skating Artists are encouraged to distinguish between the Art of Figure and Fancy Skating and the Sport of Figure Skating; and Fancy Skating should be presented as such whenever it is included in shows or exhibitions that also involve the Sport of Figure Skating. Skating Artists might even choose to compete Fancy Skating programs in ISU sanctioned events; however no matter how much the audience might appreciate such performances, Fancy Skating programs would not be expected to win ISU events due to differences in values and objectives.
Whether in practice or performance, Skating Artists create art every time they put blade to ice. Skating Artists wishing to participate in a sport as well may choose to compete in World Figure Sport sanctioned competition events, for example the annual Worlds event held in October. However, this is jut one venue for public performance of Fancy Skating. World Figure Sport supports and advocates for the expansion of opportunity for the Art of Figure and Fancy Skating in all its forms, whether as art or sport.