Pairs ice dancing is a discipline of figure skating that draws from ballroom dancing.  It joined the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and became a Winter Olympic Games medal sport in 1976.  Dancers compete as a couple consisting of a man and a woman.   Ice dance differs from pair skating by having different requirements for lifts. Couples must perform spins as a team in a dance hold, and throws and jumps are not allowed.  Typically, partners are not supposed to separate by more than two arm lengths.  In ice dancing, dancers must always skate to music with a definite beat or rhythm.  Singles and pairs skaters more often skate to the melody or phrasing of their music, rather than its beat.  This is severely penalized in ice dance.  Ice dancing events include:

• Pattern Dance
• Free Dance
• Short Dance

Competitive ice dancing events consist of pattern dances only, pattern dances and a free dance, or a short dance and a free dance, depending on the level.   Pairs Ice Dancing has 6 levels:

• Pre-Juvenile
• Juvenile
• Intermediate
• Novice
• Junior
• Senior