o i c wat u did thar: Kostner vs. Nagasu

Battle royale 

The year is 2007. The World Figure Skating Championships are scheduled to be held in Tokyo, Japan. "Noted skating choreographer" Lori Nichol, probably cognizant of this fact, accordingly choreographs a long program for Carolina Kostner to the music of the film Memoirs of a Geisha, despite the fact that the film's soundtrack was composed by an American, John Williams. But whatever, it sounds vaguely Eastern enough.

Fast-forward to 2011. The World Figure Skating Championships are scheduled to be held in Tokyo, Japan. "Noted skating choreographer" Lori Nichol, probably cognizant of this fact, accordingly choreographs a long program for Mirai Nagasu to the music of the film Memoirs of a Geisha, despite the fact that the film's soundtrack was composed by an American, John Williams. But whatever, it sounds vaguely Eastern enough.

The 2007 World Figure Skating Championships were indeed held in Tokyo. But as anyone vaguely interested in the noble sport of figure skating not abiding in a WiFi-less cave in Bouvet Island is aware, the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships were postponed and ended up being held in Moscow, Russia and Miss Nagasu failed to make the American world team anyways. Nonetheless, this turn of events was not known in 2010, when Miss Nagasu's long program was choreographed by Ms. Nichol, but the intent is clear.

Unfortunately, so is shameless recycling of music and ideas by Ms. Nichol. The similarities between the two programs are blatant, from the intended use at Tokyo Worlds to the segue into the slower section to The Chairman's Waltz to the use of the same music cuts (e.g.the quick drumming section, etc), except at different points in the programs.

On the bright side, at least Ms. Nichol waited four years until she gave Miss Nagasu this hand-me-down. Now, she only waits for one year before recycling Evan Lysacek's old music to Stravinsky's Firebird for Rachael Flatt.

And the winner is...
Lori Nichol, obviously. Miss Nagasu may have performed her program better at Four Continents, but the program is an incoherent pastiche of poorly-cut pieces of music. Miss Kostner's version of the program is slightly more cohesive, but it is as memorable as a pebble in a quarry. So the clear winner here is Ms. Nichol, who pockets a fair bit of cash with a picayune amount of creative effort with (almost) no-one the wiser.


Carolina Kostner at 2007 Worlds



Mirai Nagasu 2011 Worlds