Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Since news of skaters' music choices for the upcoming Olympic season has started to hit the presses, the prevalent theme of such music choices has not quite been La La Land to the extent I'd expected, but rather recycling--that is, re-using previously-done programs and/or music. For example, off the top of my head:

• Yuzuru Hanyu is re-using his Chopin's Ballade No. 1 SP and Seimei LP*
• Duhamel/Radford are recycling their old Muse LP
• Shoma Uno is returning to his Turandot LP
• Mirai Nagasu is re-using her Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor SP
• Elena Radionova is repurposing her Porgy and Bess SP
• Ashley Wagner is recycling her Hip Hip Chin Chin SP
• Polina Tsurskaya is re-using her Light of the Seven SP
• Alina Zagitova is returning to her Don Quixote LP
• Javier Fernandez is reusing Chaplin music for one of his programs,
• . . . and so on. 

In other words, typical Olympic season.

As noted previously, skaters generally eschew avant-garde artistic concepts or groundbreaking music choices during the Olympic season. The stakes are just too high, given that the chance for a coveted Olympic spot--much less an Olympic medal!--inconveniently only comes around once every four years. Moreover, the temptation to return to a previously-successful music choice is understandably quite strong in light of the rather conservative figure skating judging establishment, which seemingly never tires of yet another Carmen or Phantom of the Opera program.

Gems from the Youtube Vault

One of my favorite Youtube channels ever belongs to the incomparable Mintaka Alnilam, who--undoubtedly aided by the forces of cosmic goodness--somehow possesses the wherewithal to constantly upload crystal-clear, high-definition footage of ancient, decades-old figure skating events. This superb Youtubist uploads high-definition videos of skaters both famous and obscure skating at a staggeringly wide spectrum of competitions and exhibitions for the benefit of the figure skating faithful.

Having watched much of these decades-old performances exclusively through grainy, pixellated videos on Youtube for many years, suddenly being able to watch incredibly clear, high-definition videos (often with different camera angles!!) of the same performances is like being able to see the newly restored Sistine Chapel frescoes for the first time after only ever being able to view them cloaked with centuries of grime--just extraordinary. Whoever you are, Mintaka Alnilam, thank you.

Without further ado, here are some select gems from Mintaka Alnilam's Youtube vault:

Morozombie Hall of Infamy: Michelle Kwan, 2005

Who skated their suspiciously similar Spartacus short program better: Ann Patrice McDonough or Michelle Kwan?

Melancholia

Sometimes, there are days in which life feels like just another facet of shitty. In lieu of hurling myself off the nearest tall building or sticking my head into the closest aptly-sized kitchen appliance, I turn to my most convenient non-self destructive outlet for catharsis: figure skating.

Facta, non verba

Approximately two years ago, I wrote a sincerely gushy blog post about a young and promising dance team: Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov.

However, I have since attributed that blog post to the vagaries of youthful indiscretion, something akin to past follies like wearing sweatpants out in public and getting into drinking contests with a bunch of frat boys twice my size.

Lift Your Leg

The spiral is an iconic move in ladies figure skating, instantly recognizable to connoisseur and layperson alike. What other element in figure skating has quite the same breadth of appeal as the spiral, which captivates the attention of those who watch figure skating for the art (exquisite spiral perfectly timed to highlight a certain musical phrase), those preoccupied with technique (deep, stable, controlled edges...ideally), lavishness old roués (pretty girls in short skirts lifting their legs) and everyone in between? Indeed, some of the more memorable moments in figure skating have involved spirals in various incarnations:

Pick your poison

With the ubiquity of the recycling logo and the proliferation of recycling bins everywhere, recycling has long been in vogue for many people.....including the denizens that populate the world of figure skating, it appears! Instead of paper and aluminum cans, however, what is often recycled in figure skating are music cuts, program concepts and even choreography in some particularly sad cases.

So what are we to do as bewildered spectators? Vote in frivolous polls to compare the programs, of course!  Today we will focus on the environmentally-friendly works of noted skating choreographer Lori Nichol. Under the cut is a nowhere-near-exhaustive list of programs all choreographed by Ms. Nichol. Please vote and feel free to justify your choices, etc., in the comments. I will also write a follow-up post next week with my opinions of the programs.....

Choreograph This!

One of those things that annoy me to no end right now is when someone says something along the lines of, "Skater X deserves higher Choreography marks in PCS because his/her choreography is more difficult," or variations on such a statement. Well, crack open the proverbial rulebook and you will find that according to the official ISU gospel, 'difficulty' is actually not mentioned even once in the Choreography/Composition section of the official Program Components explanations. Choreography is defined by the ISU as "an intentional, developed, and/or original arrangement of all movements according to the principles of proportion, unity, space, pattern, structure, and phrasing"...ergo, according to the rules, how well the skater's choreographed movements communicate and express the idea and concept of a program, how creative/original the choreography is, etc., is actually what is supposed to be evaluated when we speak of the choreography mark in figure skating.

Perhaps due to the furore over transitions of late, I've noticed that there's often a conflation of the two separate concepts of difficulty/quantity of transitional movements and good choreography. Of course, having lots of complex and difficult linking movements and in-between skating should be and is rewarded--but according to the rulebook, in the Transitions and Skating Skills (e.g. mastery of one foot skating, etc) components. But having more or more difficult choreography and transitions doesn't necessarily mean it's better choreography, or even that such movements necessarily convey a purpose or are structured to match the music's phrasing and form. What people (including myself at times, to be honest) often forget especially in this era of CoP is that space, glide, and flow in a program are not always bad things--when used judiciously (i.e. in service to the music, etc), they can even be instances of good choreography. See, for example, the following programs:

Playing Favorites

My answer to the question 'what is your favorite Michelle Kwan short program' is somewhat like my answer to the question 'what is your favorite book': I don't really have one. In truth, both answers are heavily dependent on the attendant peculiarities of emotion, mood and circumstance. In the beginning, like almost everyone else, I worshipped at the altar of Ms. Kwan's 1997-8 Rachmaninoff short program. Then the answer became East of Eden....then shifted to Spartacus...and so on. For most of the past year, I was convinced the correct answer was indeed Dream of Desdemona, but most recently, the pendulum has swung back to Romanza, Ms. Kwan's short program from her 1995-6 season.

Paradigm Shifts

You know that moment.

It is, after all, a well-trod trope that occurs all too frequently in fiction. You know, that electrifying moment of clarity when you finally look up after so many years and realize that your longtime friend/nerd in the classroom/person whose existence you've previously disregarded is in fact that most beautiful girl/guy in the world and thus a worthy object of your fevered romantic delusions. There may or may not be alcohol and/or other mind-altering substances involved in that particular moment of epiphany, but your perception of said individual is nonetheless permanently re-calibrated thereafter: it's love.

An analogous scenario can be said to exist vis-a-vis figure skating: when one watches a single performance so awe-inspiringly, spine-chillingly right such that all extant pre-existing (negative) notions about the skater are completely and utterly dashed for the better. Such moments, however, tend to crop up with rather less frequency in reality than in fiction. After all, these moments involve not only the smashing of firmly entrenched paradigms, but also the precipitous task of falling in love instaneously. Whatever Marlowe may say about love ("who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?"), I've always felt Shakespeare made much more sense instead: the course of true love never did run smooth. In other words: it's not that easy--you want my love, you better earn it with consistently great programs paired with great performances. Not even Stephane Lambiel was able to completely capture my heart with a single performance (though Spanish Caravan in 2005 came close, but then again, I definitely had a favorable impression of Mr. Lambiel prior to watching that program for the first time).

Hasta la vista, baby

The year is 2012. Turns out that certain doomsday-minded interpretations of the Mayans' Long Count calendar were indeed correct and the end of civilization as we know it is nigh at last in the form of some complicated galactic alignment...thingy...involving the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* and the hapless planet Earth. Yet all is not quite lost: you have in your hand one valid ticket for the last rocket out of Earth headed towards Saturn's icy moon Titan. The rocket is fuelled and ready, and you have ten minutes left to fill the remaining empty space of your external hard drive with ten figure skating videos. Choose carefully, for these ten videos are to be used to proselyte the gospel of figure skating to the goodly creatures of the brave new world of Titan. What ten videos would you pick?

Your Rachmaninoff Sucks

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed a varied and extensive repertoire, yet those with little exposure to his music aside from figure skating can be forgiven for thinking that the man wrote only a mere two pieces of music. Or, to be more accurate, a mere 1.67 pieces of music: the 18th variation of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the first (Moderato) and second (Adagio Sostenuto) movements of Piano Concerto No. 2. Both works of music have been used ad nauseam in figure skating, and one can always count on one or both to be used by a skater/team every season.

In some ways, this is understandable. The first and second movements of Piano Concerto No. 2 are ravishingly beautiful pieces of music, their rich orchestration and lush lyricism sure to be pleasing to the judges' ears even if the skating is not quite on that level. Any skater would understandably want to harness the intoxicating blend of power and poetry of Piano Concerto No. 2, especially since a few enduring masterpieces have already resulted from this particular pairing of Rachmaninoff and skating:

Aranjuez

Interpretations of music vary widely. Such is especially the case for the more famous compositions: in figure skating's most well-abused music of choice, Bizet's Carmen, we have seen interpretations that run the gamut from childish exuberance (Mirai Nagasu), come-hither sensuality (Katarina Witt) to arrogant preening (Evgeni Plushenko). Given the ad nauseum use of Carmen among figure skating programs in all disciplines, such diversity of interpretation is welcome--it's bad enough that elite choreographers appear to be limited to the same few CDs, Beelzebub knows how anyone could survive if every program came at the music from exactly the same angle.

And so we have the second movement of Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, another favorite of choreographers clearly lacking in CDs. Patrick Chan is the latest elite skater to fall victim to such musical recycling, and discussion of the recent debut of his new long program to Aranjuez have inevitably led to comparison of other past programs set to the same music. In the sea of programs set to Aranjuez, Michelle Kwan's Aranjuez arguably stands the tallest in the minds of the figure skating cognoscenti. This is probably in part due to her enduring popularity as a skater, but Ms. Kwan's Aranjuez is a powerful program in its own right.

Ms. Kwan's interpretation of Aranjuez has a distinct flavor not quite matched by most other interpretations of the music. In choreographing this program for Ms. Kwan, Nikolai Morozov eschewed the melancholy original orchestration for Ikuko Kawai's rather more adrenaline-pumping violin remix. Whether this in itself was for better or for worse is a question best left to personal preferences to decide, but it is undeniable that the use of the remix was a well-suited choice for the new, firmly post-Nichol and post-Carroll Michelle Kwan. The 2002-2003 season was, after all, the season in which Ms. Kwan fully debuted her new formula to winning:

1) strip down the choreography
2) skate the most technically-ambitious jump layout that can be done cleanly
3) minimize contact with ice surface apart from skate blades
4) play some powerhouse music
5) sell the program like the rent is due tomorrow

The formula may have been simple, but it worked (well, at least it did under 6.0). The choreography was not as nuanced as it was in the past and the pieces of music used were more pedestrian, but such programs--simple but with everything done in the right place at the right time--showcased Ms. Kwan's power of audience projection magnificently and were brilliantly constructed to do exactly what they were designed to do. In this light, Ikuko Kawai's joyful and exuberant Aranjuez seems tailor-made for Ms. Kwan's triumphant and crowd-rousing spirals and footwork.

An Orison

Sometimes....a little magic is needed in our quotidian existences.

Auld Lang Syne

A technical and artistic triumph. The subtlety makes it compelling, the sheer emotion makes it beautiful, and the fact that this program of such superlative quality is performed by a sixteen year old makes it truly extraordinary.

Oh Lori



Too good to last

In the beginning...there was the golden triumvirate of Michelle Kwan, Frank Carroll and Lori Nichol. In this potent trio combined a skater with an insane amount of talent and work ethic with a coach and a choreographer that possessed the strength of vision and creativity to do something about it.

It was the stuff of dreams. It was skating's version of Fonteyn and Nureyev, of champagne and caviar. Season after season, the triumvirate consistently produced programs that quickly ascended to iconic status in figure skating:

Merry Christmas, y'all

 Merry Christmas to all three of my readers out there! In the spirit of Christmas or whatever nondenominational winter holiday you may prefer to celebrate, here are four figure skating programs so fantastic that I wish I could giftwrap them and stick them under my Christmas tree.

Are you there God? It's Me, Kanako

Often, a ladies’ skater making her debut into the senior ranks faces an important decision: embrace one’s youth, or be a lady?

Kanako Murakami is no exception. Unlike many senior debuts that go more or less un-noticed, Miss Murakami’s debut into the senior ranks of ladies’ skating has caught the attention of many a fickle skating fan. Miss Murakami has not only won the bronze at NHK and the gold at Skate America, but her skating style has left a wave of divergent opinions in its wake. Miss Murakami’s style, as exemplified in her SP, can best be described as ‘sugar on steroids.’ Everything in Miss Murakami’s SP—from her bright-pink beribboned ponytail to the megawatt exuberance of her smile and movements—has indicated that she and her coach Machiko Yamada have heartily chosen the youthful route. This, not surprisingly, has polarized opinions on the matter. Some have praised the freshness and spark in Miss Murakami’s skating, while others less fond of the perk have declared her more grating than watching Rachael Flatt’s attempts to be balletic.