The compulsory dance (CD), now called the pattern dance, is a part of the figure skating segment of ice dance competitions in which all the competing couples perform the same standardized steps and holds to the music of a specified tempo and genre. One or more compulsory dances were usually skated as the first phase of ice dancing competitions. The 2009–10 season was the final season in which the segment was included in International Skating Union (ISU) junior and senior level competition. In June 2010, the ISU replaced the name "compulsory dance" with "pattern dance" for ice dance, and merged it into the short dance (SD) beginning in the 2010–11 figure skating season.

The first CDs were developed during the 1930s by teams from Great Britain, who dominated ice dance for most of the early years after the sport was contested at the 1952 World Championships. The prominence of the CD in ice dance slowly declined, until it was removed and replaced by the SD in 2011, the year that the ISU voted to restructure ice dance competitions by removing the compulsory dance and original dance (OD) and replacing them with the short dance and free dance (FD).

Ice dancers performed the same pattern around the rink once or twice, to the same step sequences and the same standardized tempo. The competitors were then scored based on their execution of the various elements of the dance. The CD allowed the judges to compare the technical skills of each dancer.

Ice dance was contested for the first time at the World Championships in 1952; for most of that period, the British dominated the sport, winning 12 out of the next 16 championships. Many of the first CDs were developed during the 1930s by teams from Great Britain, some of which have been used by ice dance teams throughout the history of the sport. The CD's prominence in ice dance slowly declined; in 1952, CDs accounted for 60% of the total points dancers could earn, but when the original dance (OD) was added in 1967, it replaced the second CD. In 1988, the same year compulsory figures was removed from women's and men's single figure skating, CDs were decreased from three to two.

In 2010, after urging by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to decrease the number of segments from three to two "for some time", the ISU voted to remove the CD from competitions, replacing it with the SD. According to then-ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta, the change was also made because "the compulsory dances were not very attractive for spectators and television". The SD had to incorporate a compulsory element in which each dance team must perform the same two patterns of a set pattern dance. Its rhythms and themes are determined beforehand by the ISU. The ice dancers are judged on how well they integrate the pattern dance into the entire SD.

The 2010 World Championships was the last event to include a CD (the Golden Waltz), with Federica Faiella and Massimo Scali from Italy being the last dance team to perform a CD in competition.

The dances that have been performed in junior and senior international competition include the following, which is not a comprehensive list:

Name	First performed	Creators
Fourteenstep	1889	Franz Schöller
European Waltz	before 1900
American Waltz
Kilian	1909	Karl Schreiter
Tango	1932	Paul Krechkow, Trudy Harris
Foxtrot	1933
European Waltz	before 1900	Eric van der Weyden, Eva Keats
Argentine Tango	1934	Reginald J. Wilkie, Daphne B. Wallis
Blues	1934	Robert Dench, Lesley Turner
Rocker Foxtrot	1934	Eric van der Weyden, Eva Keats
Viennese Waltz	1934	Eric van der Weyden, Eva Keats
Paso Doble	1938	Reginald B. Wilkie, Daphne B. Wallis
Quickstep	1938	Reginald J. Wilkie, Daphne B. Wallis
Rhumba	1938	Walter Gregory
Westminster Waltz	1938	Eric van der Weyden, Eva Keats
Silver Samba	1963	Courtney J. L. Jones, Peri V. Horne
Starlight Waltz	1963	Courtney J. L. Jones, Peri V. Horne
Yankee Polka	1969	James Sladky, Judy Schwomeyer, Ronald Ludington
Ravensburger Waltz	1973	Angelika Buck, Erich Buck, Betty Callaway
Tango Romantica	1974	Lyudmila Pakhomova / Aleksandr Gorshkov, Elena Tchaikovskaia
Austrian Waltz	1979	Susi Handschmann, Peter Handschmann
Golden Waltz	1987	Natalia Dubova, Marina Klimova, Sergei Ponomarenko
Cha Cha Congelado	1989	Bernard Ford, Kelly Johnson, Laurie Palmer, Steven Belanger
Finnstep	1995	Susanna Rahkamo, Petri Kokko, Martin Skotnicky
Midnight Blues	2001	Roy Bradshaw, Sue Bradshaw, Mark Bradshaw, Julie MacDonald

• Hines, James R. (2011). Historical Dictionary of Figure Skating. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6859-5.
• U.S. Figure Skating (2009). "The 2010 Official U.S. Figure Skating Rulebook". Archived from the original on 18 July 2018. Colorado Springs, Colorado. Retrieved 27 September 2022.