Decoding and Reconstruction : Understanding and Interpreting the Music for Ice Dance.

Based on the ice dance competition rules issued by the ISU in June 2018 and the Requirements for Technical Rules (season 2021/22) as well as the theories of art and musicology, this paper studies the relationship between the music and technical movements of the top eight ice dance athletes in the two Winter Olympic Games of Sochi and Pyeongchang in 2014 and 2018. This study seeks to find out how ice dance athletes interpret the music via their body movements, with a view to providing valuable theoretical reference for improving Chinese ice dancers' understanding and interpretation of music and their artistic expression. The results show that: 1) ice dancers' athletic performance is closely related to how well they interpret the music; 2) the process of understanding and interpreting music with body movements is a process of "decoding and reconstructing" the music; 3) in rhythm dance, high-scoring athletes focus on accurate analysis and control of the rhythm in music; 4) in free dance, high-scoring athletes use their body language to interpret the music language, image and style, and respond to all the subtleties of the music to the maximum extent when choreographing the movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]