New Judging System: Boring?
November 27, 2007
I was at a party a few weeks ago where a friend of a friend (non-skating) told me she’d recently watched some figure skating on TV. Though she couldn’t remember what the event was called, I gleaned from her description that she had probably stumbled upon Skate America on ESPN.
“So do you guys have new judging system, or something?” She looked at me with confusion. I confirmed that this was, in fact, the case, and that it was implemented in response to so-called “Skategate” in 2002. She nodded her head in recognition of the debacle then asked how this new system works. I attempted to explain how it’s now all about accumulating points and how there is a new “technical panel” in charge of identifying the elements. I added a few details about levels and program components. In all, I was feeling pretty good about how I was getting better at describing IJS to the layperson. I concluded my spiel with, “The new system is completely different, but, you know, the more things change the more they stay the same, right?” I chuckled, and raised my wine up a few inches, thinking that me and my new best friend would clink glasses over this universal truth.
But she was asleep.
Okay, she wasn’t really asleep, but her eyes had glazed over and she was obviously sorry she asked, so I immediately hit the conversational ball into her court and inquired what she does for work. Finance. (Now it was my turn for a nap.)
Sports are big business. Skating sells tickets, paraphernalia, and, most lucratively, advertising spots during TV broadcasts. This popularity trickles down to coaches: the more kids (and parents) who see and fall in love with skating, the more kids who lace up for lessons.
People tune in because of the entertainment value. Our sport has provided a lot of entertainment over the years, and not just in the form of scandals. The public has long been enamored with figure skating because it is aesthetically pleasing, difficult, and exciting. The excitement is derived both from what happens on the ice – falls, popped jumps, acrobatic maneuvers, the worst or most triumphant skate of someone’s life – and also from the scores, afterwards.
Fans are sometimes incensed and other times in agreement with the judges, but the point is that, just by virtue of forming their own opinions, they are investing in the outcome. This is what differentiates skating from ballet, for example. Ballet is incredibly beautiful and ballerinas are accomplished athletes, but there are no outcomes or results, so the viewing experience is entirely different. (Some might argue that the experience is superior or more nuanced, but I’m speaking here in terms of mass popularity, and ballet, relative to skating, is under the radar.)
The successful contest-type reality shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars (and Skating with Celebrities, ha!) work on the exact same principles as competitive skating. The performances are entertaining in and of themselves and, then, everybody wants to hear what the judges have to say. (Of course, the judges, especially in American Idol, are as entertaining as the performers; there is a bombastic quality to the judges’ verbal critiques that skating will of course do well to avoid.)
The key is that sports fans want to have confidence in the scoring process: mainly, that the individual judges are knowledgeable and ethical and that the system enables them to reward competence and difficulty appropriately. Basically, it all comes down to fairness and efficacy.
All of this came into question in 2002 when it was revealed that a French judge allegedly made a deal with a Russian judge at the Olympics. Suddenly, impropriety, back-room dealing, and years of questionable tactics were displayed on televisions and newspaper covers around the world. It did seem like something drastic needed to be done. The ISU, headed by Ottavio Cinquanta, (a former speedskater) responded by doling out a second gold medal, slapping a few wrists, and rolling up its sleeves in order to perform surgery on the judging process.
Whether or not IJS was the result of a complete organ transplant or merely plastic surgery is a matter of debate. It seems to me that it was a little of both: there have been some extreme changes (Accumulation of points rather than comparing skaters! Levels! Scale of Values! GOE’s! Technical Panels including coaches!) and some minor ones (“program components” is the new name for what is basically still the artistic score; there have been a whole host of niggling clarifications regarding the placement of limbs and feet in relationship to the head or the ice surface; and all of it, of course, is still very subjective). Many people believe that, after all this, the current body, IJS, isn’t much healthier than what we had before, and, in fact, it may be worse off.
What I’m interested in, here, is the outside perspective, whether or not it is easy and fun to follow, and whether the entertainment factor is intact. Of course, as a coach, I’m inevitably looking at it from the inside to out.
Imagine if your old friend, a person you’ve known pretty much your entire life, just got a new kidney, a new brain, a new left arm, and a new face. This would take some getting used to and it would be especially painful if you had to watch him wander around all woozy and disoriented. This is how a lot of coaches, officials and skaters are feeling about skating. We’re trying to be patient and supportive while the sport re-establishes its identity within the new system and we’re working hard to believe that it’s still the same sport we grew up with, that it still has the same heart.
Meanwhile, the relationship has definitely changed. As coaches, our process of choreographing and strategizing in order to accrue points has necessarily transformed. Unfortunately, information is scattered piece-meal across documents released over the course of months. If you want to learn the specifics of how IJS works in your discipline starting today, there is no one, final place to go.
It is amusing to me that one of the more helpful references is called ISU First Aid, a set of packets prepared for Technical Callers. The implication of this monicker, of course, is that this new system is flawed and in need of rescue. These guides are some of the most thorough documents out there, so many coaches have printed them out and placed them in binders, to lug into the rink. But these pages are by no means definitive, up to date, or user-friendly.
Coaching is a new business, now. There is a new math and an urgency to keep up with the constant changes. (For further comment on this issue, see my previous posting entitled IJS: Ch-ch-changes. And imagine my amusement/horror when, a few weeks ago, most coaches received an e-mail offer from the PSA to provide IJS updates in the form of text messages!) Officials have had to re-tool as well. Both judges and the technical panelists have had to scramble to figure out what is going on.
I can only assume that if it’s a struggle for insiders to keep up, then it has got to be laborious for fans, as well. But perhaps this isn’t a valid assumption. After all, when that friend undergoes all those afore-mentioned transplants, he seems totally different to you. But if you weren’t as familiar with him to begin with, then maybe the changes in his inner-workings and facial structure wouldn’t seem so drastic. Still, I’ve got to believe that, even to acquaintances, he’s harder to relate to, now; sadly, there’s a distance.
For example, the media is having trouble explaining IJS. Of course, there is method to IJS madness, but it’s too complex to fit into a quick sound bite (or cocktail party conversation.) I think there used to be a frustrating sense of mystery surrounding the 6.0 System because the method of scoring seemed too arbitrary and abstract. Now, there is exactly as much mystery but for the opposite reason: there is a surplus of information. IJS is not impossible to follow, but it takes a lot more effort.
Maybe fans didn’t always understand the judging rationale under the 6.0 system, but they did understand that a 5.9 was closer to “perfection” than a 5.2, so they had some sense of context. Besides, this scale was finite and easy to conceptualize. There was a particular thrill when skaters earned a 6.0. The marks themselves often received standing ovations. Is there the same magic or “wow factor” now when skaters achieve a “high score”?
Something else we took for granted with the 6.0 System is that it was unique to skating, a trademark, of sorts. If a person tripped while walking down the street, then recovered with a flourish and a “tah dah!” her friend might clap and say, “6.0!” IJS will not have that kind of pop-culture recognition. Mind you, I’m not arguing for the old system, I’m just taking some notes.
There are a lot of television fans who say, “I didn’t understand the judging then and I don’t understand it now: I just think skating is beautiful.” But there many different kinds of fans. There are avid fans who purchase tickets for local and international events. Many are observing IJS like hawks and weighing in on skating chat sites. Some speckle the stands at practice sessions and clamor for autographs. There are the fans who, under the old system, before standings were immediately displayed on the jumbotron, would scribble the judges scores into their programs and somehow tabulate the results before they were posted. There was a sort of cultish bravado in being able to do this and there’s no reason for it now.
Many of the most ardent fans are questioning whether the performances are still as awe-inspiring as they once were, now that skaters are beholden to this new set of stringent requirements. Athletes are speedskating from element to element and contorting themselves in odd positions. Many contend that the programs are starting to all look the same, that skating, of all things, is becoming…boring.
Keep in mind that fans all have varying abilities to recognize elements. So while we, as coaches, are watching, we are automatically identifying elements (and now, features, and levels, etc..) but the average viewer doesn’t necessarily even know the difference between an axel and a lutz. To them, all the jumps look the same, so, if all the spins, step sequences and spiral sequences also look the same to them, we have a problem. I’m extrapolating here: If all the skating looks the same to these fans, it’s unlikely they’ll become attached to any one skater and form opinions about his or her outcome. Therefore, their investment decreases and entertainment value, for them, I’m sorry to say, is probably diminished.
While we bury our noses in our ISU First Aid binders, and brush up on our math skills, it’s important to not lose sight of the fact that skating, first and foremost, should be fun for the skaters, and secondly, entertaining to the public. I think it’s critical that we keep tabs on whether IJS is threatening this. After all, if the kids aren’t enjoying themselves and the public dozes off, then we’ll be forced to pursue careers in (snore) Finance.
***
What are your thoughts? Please add your own two cents.
To read an impassioned open letter to Ottavio Cinquanta regarding IJS, written by Sonia Bianchetti, a long-time International skating official from Italy, click on: http://www.soniabianchetti.com/writings_openletter.html
And tune in next week: I’ve been in hot pursuit of useful information on boots and blades…
Morning Madness
November 20, 2007
(Note: This installment is dedicated to all the coaches who subject themselves to the Before-School Shift, a concept surely invented by a madman, or Lucifer himself.)
I am a wimp. I only coach one early morning per week, Wednesdays. One season, I scheduled lessons on Friday mornings, as well, and it just about killed me. Several of my colleagues rise at the crack of dawn three, four, five times per week. I’ll never understand how they do this. I suspect that, despite how human they seem, they are in fact robots specifically programmed to coach at ungodly hours, to also coach later in the day, and, to do all of this, miraculously, with their eyes open.
The reason to go in early is that the sessions are less crowded. Skaters can actually fit in a run-through of their program or an entire pattern of a dance. They can even skate the Spirals from the Novice Moves without beheading anyone or spraining their own necks trying to see who is behind them.
Okay, the main reason to go in early is that, strangely, some skaters want to take lessons at this time! This is also difficult for me to comprehend. When I was a kid, there wouldn’t have been enough money or chocolate to coax me to the rink before school. Granted, I skated early every Saturday and Sunday of my young life, which severely impacted my visibility on the slumber party circuit, took me out of the Saturday morning cartoon loop, and to repeat a refrain from above, just about killed me.
I’ve learned that there really are two kinds of people in this world – night owls and early birds – and it’s pretty obvious which category I’m in. Believe me, I’d go to sleep earlier if I could, but there’s so much to get done (both petty and profound) and insomnia has long been a loyal companion.
If Early Morning Coaching were a reality show, the producers would probably assign us three extreme, nearly-impossible challenges: Getting Up, Getting to the Rink, and Coaching Coherently. Here is what the viewing audience might see, in my case.
Challenge One: Getting up.
I have proven that I am incapable of using the so-called “snooze button” responsibly, therefore, I no longer purchase alarm clocks that offer this function. Instead, I set two alarms, 10 minutes apart and place them across the room so that, in order to stop their screeching, I have to actually stand up and take a few zombie-like steps. But after that first alarm rings at 5 AM, I promptly re-bury myself under the covers deep enough for a whole winter’s hibernation or, at least several more hours of slumber. After all, it’s so cold outside that bed, and the rink is at least 75 times colder.
Of course, sleep turns out be impossible since my brain is busy cataloguing legitimate reasons to cancel. Perhaps the weather is too bad (this may require a peek out the window). Perhaps all the north-bound streets in New York City are randomly closed. Maybe my garage guy has lost my car keys. Unable to come up with anything external that will get me off the hook, I decide each and every Wednesday morning that… I just can’t do it. Plain and simple.
Next, I compose a mental list of the phone calls I need to make. The problem is that my commute is longer than any of my students’ so even my first student probably isn’t awake yet and my later students won’t be up for hours. I imagine groggy, confused parents croaking the word, “Hello?” into the phone so I can tell them, “I just can’t do it.” In order to avoid waking them up, I plan to make one cancellation call every half hour. It takes me a few moments to realize that this means I definitely won’t get back to sleep. And right about now, it also starts to dawn on me how ridiculous my excuse is.
I eventually admit to myself that it’s easier to just go in. But, still, I am unable to get up. The only way I manage to finally get out of bed (and turn off that other alarm before it rings) would make Homer Simpson very proud: in my mind’s eye, I dangle a donut.
Challenge Two: Getting to the rink.
The good news is that it doesn’t matter what you wear in this business since it’s just going to get covered in several layers of fleece, Gore-tex, and down-feather coats, anyway. For the record, I’ve never worn my pajamas to the rink, but I have contemplated it. The only form of primping I can manage is deciding which baseball cap I’m going to hide under. I live in the illusion that this disguises how tired I look (and if not, please don’t burst my bubble.)
It’s weird how empty the sidewalks of New York are at this hour. It’s dark, quiet, and downright eerie: I swiftly cross the street and sneak around the block toward my garage with my eyes darting around nervously. In the three years I’ve lived in the city, I’ve only had one slightly distressing early-morning incident and this wasn’t nearly as harrowing as the time, back in the suburbs, I had a pre-dawn stare-down with a skunk.
I am fortunate that, as a customer of an indoor garage, I never have to warm up my car or scrape snow off the windshield. Though, sometimes I do have to wake up the attendant by pressing the obnoxious buzzer. If that doesn’t work, I call the garage phone located directly beside his ear. As he stumbles toward the security gate, I greet him apologetically and we both shake our heads, in mutual misery.
Once in my car, I ponder two things. 1) Who are all those people in the diner on the corner? Have they gotten up early just to beat the omelete rush or have they been partying all night? And: 2) Though the sidewalks are empty, the streets are teeming with traffic. Who are all these crazy people on the roads already and what could possibly be so important that they need to be getting to it this early?
To describe my state once I am out on the highway, I must once again conjure the image of Homer Simpson, who is prone to falling asleep at the wheel. In one episode, his eyelids slowly close as his car transforms into a plush, four-poster bed carried along on the wings of angels…
Thankfully, I’ve never dozed off while driving, but I have to constantly and vigilantly resist it. One of the ways I do so is by striking up the old Coffee Debate: Will I or will I not purchase it? And then: What size? And after that: Will I really indulge in a donut? I believe that coffee is unhealthy, so I’m not proud of this addiction. The styrofoam it’s served in is horrible for the environment. And, really, I need a donut about as bad as I need to install a spare tire around my waist, an eventuality to which a donut is only going to contribute. Then again, don’t I deserve some kind of reward for getting up this early?
Results: My car makes a right turn into Dunkin’ Donuts 100% of the time. I order a medium coffee without fail. I add a donut to my order about 1 out of 10 Wednesday mornings and gobble it down voraciously, messily, and guiltily before I even pull out of the parking lot.
Challenge Three: Coaching Coherently
Upon entering the rink, I make the morning’s first attempt at a smile. My target is the zamboni driver who seems to be in a trance at the front desk. The bags under his eyes are almost as large as mine. While lacing up my skates and chit chatting with whomever else is on the benches, I pretend I am awake. I pretend I am chipper. I pretend I am happy to be at the rink.
Once on the ice, I groan along with the sparse collection of other coaches, who would like me to believe they are struggling with this early hour as much as I am (and which is surely not the case.) We engage in a camaraderie that I’m only be able to fully appreciate after I open the little tab on my coffee cup and take exactly four swigs.
Fortunately, music is already playing. I have instructed my first two students that, on Wednesdays, they are not just skaters but also DJs. I don’t care what this music is, as long as it’s pumping loudly throughout the arena (and it’s not ice dance music). They happily oblige by queuing up the playlists on their ipods. The combination of music, caffeine, and the expectation that I am supposed to be a source of information is what finally snaps me fully awake.
Thus, the teaching begins. I find that, usually, the skaters are in much better shape than I (in more ways than one.) If, every once in a while, they complain about how tired they are, I look at them incredulously and take a few more sips of coffee. “Are you kidding me?” I cry with exaggeration. “This is the best time of the day! Are you saying you don’t love this as much as I do? This is the first day of the rest of our lives and we have the honor of starting it off in this beautiful rink!”
I rattle off a few more lies before I notice that they can see right through me. I might as well come clean. “Yup,” I back-peddle. “I know. This early morning stuff stinks.” I gesture toward the rink with my mitten. “…But at least we have clear ice?” On this point, they agree with me, and head out to skate upon it. I drink yet more coffee and embark upon what usually turns out to be, despite all the resistance and all the pain, some of the most productive lessons of the week.
***
Do you have any tips on surviving Early Morning Coaching for the rest of us? Please advise.
Note the newest CSOM addition: I have written a few articles for icenetwork.com and you can link to them, over there, in the column to the right.
Thanks for reading and Happy Thanksgiving.
Review: Dorothy Hamill’s Book
November 13, 2007
Dorothy Hamill’s new book, A Skating Life, starts off with a zinger. In the first two pages, she describes coming back to her hotel room after winning her 1976 Olympic gold medal. Her mother is there, alone, surrounded by cigarette smoke. When Hamill reports the results, her mother simply responds with an unimpassioned, “That’s nice.” Hamill didn’t know, while she was performing, or while she was on the podium afterwards, that her mother, the one person most helpful in getting her to that vaunted place, was not in the arena. Nineteen year-old Hamill was understandably confused by her mother’s absence and she would spend many years trying to figure it out. This is also confusing to her fans, so we’ll turn the pages to learn more.
One of the things I was taught in writing school is that where you start a story is absolutely critical. It’s good, for example, to start in the middle of the action. It’s good to start with a contradiction, or a surprise. It’s good to have your reader immediately and anxiously asking the questions, “Why?” and, “How?” Hamill and her co-author, Deborah Amelon, effectively utilize these tactics. After getting our attention, they go back and describe how it all began. And Hamill’s beginning wasn’t really so different from any of ours. For example, despite her impressive ascent, she completely botched an early competition, she failed her First figure test, and, she indulged in her own teenage meltdowns when her program didn’t go well in practice.
On the one hand, we want to believe that everything was shiny and happy for America’s sweetheart. After all, on TV, she seemed so shy, so innocent, so untouched by the ugliness of skating politics or the weight of family drama. On the other hand, it’s fascinating to discover that there was a darker underbelly to that winning moment, the years that led up to it, and, even more so, the years that followed. Dorothy Hamill has long been a public icon, yet, similar to Princess Diana, she has always seemed so down to earth, and likeable; I think this memoir makes Hamill even more endearing.
We find out about Hamill’s tension-filled relationship with her mother, who sacrificed much and seemed almost impossible to please. The “skating mother” figure is an industry cliché, but it’s also a reality. Skating is a world comprised mostly of mothers and daughters. In rinks around the country, we see the tangle of love, hope, desire, and drive leading to suffocation, or success (or both simultaneously) every day. Hamill is also frank about the impact skating can have on the entire family, the way it can morph dynamics and create financial and emotional strain. Hamill describes that her own situation was further complicated by depression that went undiagnosed and largely untreated on both her mother’s and her father’s sides.
The Olympic moment is revisited about half way through the book and the remaining pages deal with the aftermath. And I use the word aftermath very much on purpose. Not that there weren’t a few highlights, like: her vindicating 1st place at Worlds immediately following the Olympics, falling in love with Dean Paul Martin, and, later, the birth of her daughter. But she also encountered a heartbreaking amount of bad luck, peppered with a dose of admitted bad decisions, such as: the divorce from Martin and his subsequent fatal airplane crash, a second marriage to an apparent deadbeat, robbery, injury, bankruptcy, and getting taken advantage-of in what seems like infinite ways.
It is brave for Hamill to reveal this kind of personal information to the extent that she does. But it doesn’t feel as if she is merely “airing her dirty laundry” (one of my own mother’s favorite phrases), because she seems to be writing this for a larger purpose. Throughout the book, she examines herself and her family through the lens of depression. She is an advocate of diagnosis, therapy, and medication, if needed.
Of course, for skating insiders, this is an especially interesting read because of all the familiar names of coaches, skaters, and rinks that interconnect our small web. And I think skaters and non-skaters alike can appreciate the universal messages Hamill imparts. She demonstrates that it’s not easy at the top, and that when you hit rock-bottom you just have to climb back up.
I recommend that you read A Skating Life, if for no other reason, for a single scene that takes place near the end, after Hamill has hit a particularly rough patch. Hamill, the Olympic champion, gets back on the ice after several months off by attending a public session. It’s an emotional moment for author and reader. Despite its twists and turns, skating has always been, for Hamill, and for many of us, something very personal and redemptive. Skating, in one form or another, is something we can always come back to. I know that for me, anyway, it’s been a starting point, and…a landing.
***
To watch Dorothy Hamill’s Gold Medal performance in the 1976 Olympics, click here.
Thanks for reading.
Ice Theatre of New York
November 6, 2007
This weekend I attended the Ice Theatre of New York’s annual show at Chelsea Piers on Manhattan’s west side. The best word I can use to describe this experience is: refreshing. In this era of stringent IJS requirements in which programs have become as jam-packed as tiny clown cars and the skaters look to be rushing from element to element like actors in an old, sped-up, silent film, it’s nice to see a skater hold an edge, slowly move her arm while doing so, and gaze up at her hand as if she’s really seeing it for the first time.
This is not to say that Ice Theatre of New York is stripped-down or breaking skating into its simplest parts. On the contrary, the seven pieces in this show were multi-layered, infused with meaning, and forced me to think rather than merely observe. This is ice dance, but not “ice dance” as we know it in the competitive realm. And this is theatre, but not Broadway-musical schmaltz of the jazz-hands variety. It is, most accurately, modern dance on ice: the rink is a stage, white spotlights expertly track the skaters, and the boards are tastefully covered with black curtains so that you can almost imagine you’re in a small, off-beat theatre a little bit further downtown.
Ice Theatre of New York was founded by Moira North over 20 years ago and she now co-directs with David Liu, three-time Olympian representing Taiwan. Over the years, they’ve worked with a number of talented choreographers, both with and without skating backgrounds. They’ve received grants from both national and local arts organizations and they host an annual benefit gala. So it basically functions like a dance company…with blades.
When I was in graduate school at Sarah Lawrence College, my roommate was pursuing her Masters in modern dance under the late Viola Farber, a woman who had danced with the legendary Merce Cunningham Company. As a skater, it was fascinating to attend these student shows and not just because of the agility of the dancers. I was struck by the inventiveness of the choreography, the combination of structure and freedom, and the evident thought that went into each piece’s construction. It was also fascinating to watch my roommate do her homework. I remember her once choreographing a piece based on the mathematics represented in a line painting by Agnes Martin. Suffice it to say, this isn’t exactly how my brother and I had gone about choreographing our own show numbers to the songs of Grease or the Jackson 5.
In later years, I would come to admire the creativity of Torvill and Dean, and the Duchesnays, and was fortunate to work with choreographer Jill Cosgrove in Delaware who created, for us, several unique programs. So my window into choreography was just big enough to amply appreciate the different kinds of movement and composition I was seeing in those modern dance performances. Likewise, I appreciate what Ice Theatre of New York is doing.
You won’t see many jumps at an Ice Theatre performance. (Although, when a Double Salchow sneaks its way into a piece, the crowd erupts with applause, ready to fulfill its usual role.) And you won’t see many current stars from the world of skating. (Though they do occasionally feature guests: when I attended a few years ago, Oksana Baiul phoned in a lackluster performance, which only served to make the pieces before and after her seem more sophisticated and sure-footed.) What you will see is people skating in a way you have probably never seen.
For example, you might see skaters down on the ice, and not because they have fallen. And they may even stay there for a while. I learned from my grad school roommate that “floor-work” was a standard and difficult part of modern dance training. Ice Theatre of New York’s Alyssa Stith has deftly translated this floor-work to the ice, twisting and writhing across it, and transitioning from up to down and back up again seamlessly. At one point, in a piece called “Once Again,” choreographed by Heather Harrington, she used her toe picks to pivot around on her (bare!) stomach so that she was a virtual human turntable.
You might also see a few props. In one of my favorite parts of the show, a piece entitled “2:1,” choreographed by David Liu, Stith skated with a chair in a way that made me wonder if it was her partner, or her long-lost partner, or the partner she yearned to find…then again, maybe the chair just represented her solitude…or her imagination, and that’s all she needed? These questions were posed abstractly to the dramatic notes of J.S. Bach, and mirrored nicely against a couple (Tyrrell Gene and Elisa Angeli), who skated sometimes alongside her and other times orbiting on the same circle, yet across from her. At the end, they all stood alone on opposite sides of the universe…I mean, rink.
“Mi Andalucia,” a flamenco dance choreographed by Peter DiFalco, was one of the more traditional parts of the show, as it included the kind of movement most familiar to skating eyes. First, David Lui conjured the image of a bullfighter then the female ensemble seduced us with their hands, wrists, eyes, and lilting skirts. In the piece’s third section, Elisa Angeli and Jiri Prochazka got a lot of mileage out of a fuschia cape. One minute, it seemed like a cloak, then a blanket, then a flag, then it seemed to represent the flames of their fiery romance. And, yes, it was pretty hot.
The highlight, and the most-anticipated moment of the evening, was David Liu’s performance of “After All,” a piece originally choreographed for John Curry by dance icon, Twyla Tharp, in 1976. Legend has it that she closely observed Curry skating for several hours straight as he slowly progressed from figures, to spins, to jumps. Indeed, this did seem to be how the piece itself built, starting with Liu tracing out meticulous circles, even taking time to carve a flower out of serpentine loops, and eventually culminating, toward the end, in a tight-circled, Axel/Double Loop/Double Axel surprise. All of this was intermixed with a mesmerizing number of turns and well-sculpted extensions.
The weakest link was, unfortunately, the opener, entitled, “Heart,” choreographed by Joanna Mendl Shaw. Set to a pulsating beat and composed of geometrical repetitions, the clever angular movements and partnering work seemed to call for a synchronicity and precision that the performers didn’t quite pull off that night. Conversely, the foursome in “Meditation,” choreographed by Douglass Webster, created an ethereal, whirling effect by executing Three-turns and Twizzles in a traveling “box formation” to the sounds of Phillip Glass. When they were meant to be in unison, they were, and when turning “in a round,” or sequentially, the result was a kind of dizzying effervescence. My own trance-like state was only interrupted at this point by a hockey player trudging past the stands carrying his stick and wearing full equipment. Wrong rink, buddy!
Anyway, it was an entertaining and inspiring night, topped off perfectly at a cozy French bistro on 9th Avenue, at table comprised mostly of past competitors. If you are in the New York area and you haven’t done so already, I recommend that you put this show on your calendar for next year, or check out some of the performances they have lined-up yet this season at Rockefeller Center or Bryant Park. And it’s not a bad idea to encourage skaters to attend, too. They already know this a sport, but it’s a nice way to remind them that it’s an art form, as well.
To visit the Ice Theatre of New York’s website: http://www.icetheatre.org/
Thanks for reading and please share your own impressions by clicking on Comments below…
