Go Back to Competition and Show Reviews Index
The compulsory skated was the Silver Samba, which is quite enjoyable when there are 12 couples and not 33. Punsalan & Swallow were pushing hard to skate this one fast with deep lobes, but at the end of the side by side scissor steps (?) in the second pattern, it looked like Jerod stopped on Liz's blade, and he had a minor stumble. They got off the music at the finish and this was enough to put them in third for this phase, with Lobachova & Averbukh taking the 5/4 split with almost as much speed as P&S, better control, one small unison break, and incredibly fluorescent yellow costumes. Drobiazko & Vanagas lost some speed on the second pattern but were overall very solid, with excellent expression. Lefebvre & Brunet skated with more flow and better unison than last year. Bourne & Kraatz were the clear winners with gorgeous edge quality and excellent flow and control.
There were some entertaining jives to be seen in the original dance portion of the event. Lang & Tchernyshev skated to "Good Golly Miss Molly," benefitting from being the first of the three teams to use the music (Lefebvre & Brunet skated the best jive to this music, however). Not much difficulty, skated pretty far apart, with not great ice coverage but good expression.
Angelika Fuhring & Bruno Ellinger of Austria wore white, black and pink outfits that somebody (Amy?) described as waiter outfits on "The Jetsons." They used the same music and were extremely slow, looking like a junior team... maybe.
Nozomi Watanabe & Akiyuki Kido of Japan did "Great Balls of Fire" in totally adorable costumes that helped to mitigate their lower level of skating skill. She wore a hot pink poodle skirt with boot covers made to look like saddle shoes, while "Aki" wore a hot pink jacket with his name on the front and the name of the music on the back. They skated this with good expression and the crowd enjoyed them and booed their marks with vigour.
Margarita Drobiazko & Povilas Vanagas also did "Great Balls of Fire" in orange costumes, Povilas in a baseball jacket with an artistic rendering of the song title on the back and a big "P" on the front. This was very upbeat and smooth, with a lot of difficult stuff in it, but perhaps not the strictest interpretation of the "look" of the jive.
Albena Denkova & Maxim Stavyski of Bulgaria did "Wooly Bully" in purple and black costumes, good expression, OK level of difficulty. He has personality in excess, looking physically like Johnnie Stiegler and moving his body (almost) like Aleksandr Abt. She is not as strong a dancer, but has certainly improved since I saw her with her previous partner.
Elizabeth Punsalan & Jerod Swallow, a couple who do nothing for me and who made almost no discernible impact on the audience at large, nevertheless probably should have won the OD with a fast, smooth and well-executed dance. They don't tend to do much footwork at the same time, but what they did do was more difficult than either B&K or L&A (as far as my untrained eyes could see), and they skated this dance better than the other two.
Irina Lobachova & Ilya Averbukh skated a very enjoyable program to "Tutti Frutti" that included their standard "Presenting the Male" choreography, Ilya playing guitar on Irina's leg, and Ilya begging like a little doggie. She wore a yellow dress, far more subtle than the candy-striped pink, blue and yellow outfit she had been practising in, while Ilya wore black with yellow underneath and lots of goop in his hair. They had some good originality and difficulty in the holds and footwork, but P&S were faster and smoother. L&A were scrapey.
Something has happened to Yelizaveta Stekolnikova & Dmitri Kazarlyga, the team fro Kazakhstan who I thought were so promising two years ago. They seem to have left Dubova, and their choreography has gone with her. They wore unappetizing green and black outfits to "Rockin' Robin" and were sort of slow, with a clunky lift. Expression was still good and they skated this better than in practise.
Dominique Deniaud & Martial Jaffredo of France did their very adorable jive to "Footloose" in red and black costumes. They were still very slow, but cute, peppy and better skated than at Skate America. She did have a bit of a slip, but no major calamities.
Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz skated next to "I Saw Her Standing There" in non-historical outfits, his a plain black jumpsuit and hers a plain lime neon green dress. They open with a lift that looks very clunky, as though Shae-Lynn weighs about 200 pounds. This number obviously needed a lot of work, with several small collisions, skated nowhere near as fast as Punsalan & Swallow, and without any connection that I could see to the beat of the music. Their marks were generous, to say the least. Near the end, S-L lifted Victor into a butterfly type variant.
Last to skate the OD were Chantal Lefebvre & Michel Brunet, closing out the event with another "Good Golly Miss Molly." She wore a fuchsia dress that looked gorgeous on her, while Michel wore "Dad at home on the weekend, thinking about playing golf" outfit with plaid pants. They skated this with good speed and difficulty, much improved from last year. Flow and expession were very good and I would have had them ahead of the Kazakhs in 5th, although S&K did have better unison.
The dance free began with a withdrawal. Fuhring & Ellinger's free to "Goldeneye" and other delights was not to be seen, as Bruno apparently had his knee go out. For the second to last free dance practice, Angelika showed up, ran through most of the dance by herself, while Bruno came on the ice halfway through the session, stroked around the ice, and then left. When neither one appeared at the last free dance practice, I assumed that they had pulled out.
Lang & Tchernyshev skated a disastrous free program, their pseudo Chalom & Gates Latin, beginning almost immediately with Petr falling on a lunge type move in the first 10 seconds. They seemed very strained and not as expressive (well, he wasn't as expressive, she's not terribly expressive in general) as in practice or at Skate America. They were fairly slow, with very open holds. Naomi fell near the end of the dance, looking like she might have caught a toe pick, and then he almost fell *again* during some footwork right after that. They actually came in last in the free, which must have been a bit of an embarrassment.
Watanabe & Kido skated a free dance to "Fever" and "Hey Pachuco" in black and burgundy-red (the costume color of the competition). In general, their choreography was very well-suited to their skating level, but the music at the end was much too fast for them. He's a bit scrapey and did most of the dance on two feet. Lifts were simple, a lot of side by side skating.
Stekolnikova & Kazarlyga skated in mustard tops with a red mesh overlay (someone - Amy? - said that it looked like the bags that onions come in) over green "patched" bottoms, hers with a "rag" skirt. They skated to "Istanbul," "La Vie En Rose," and "Puttin' on the Ritz." They were very scrapey but had some OK difficulty. Their holds were lacking with sloppy lifts, and they lost a lot of speed halfway through the performance.
Deniaud & Jaffredo did their blues free dance that I really enjoyed. Using one piece of music and one mood made a strong impact that the audience appreciated and moved them up in the standings. They have nice unison, very well-matched as skaters, and expression, but could have used more holds in the dance and less side by side skating. Their use of the music was sensitive and original, and I liked their choreography.
Lefebvre & Brunet skated to Latin music, including mambo, rhumba, and cha-cha (at least), with her in an orange, mid-riff baring dress, and him in a black outfit with "Ilya" slits that exposed bright orange and red underneath. They skated with much more speed than the Frenchies, unison good, and lots of expression. Chantal had a slight stumble near the end, but they recovered well. Their lifts were much smoother than last year and better integrated into the rest of the program. I enjoyed them.
Denkova & Stavyski skated to an oddly recorded version of "Sing, Sing, Sing" with blues in the middle and some other Big Band music at the end, wearing black and fluorescent salmon pink, him with matching tie. (He black, her pink). He is a much stronger skater than she is and they did have one clunky lift where she clonked her toe pick into the ice with a resounding thud. Maxim is awesome, with that floppy, Jim Carrey-like body movement coupled with nice extension and some showmanship. Not much difficulty in this dance, and it got pretty sloppy. They seem to be coached by Tarasova.
Drobiazko & Vanagas' new free dance is to an "Indian" theme (I mean South Asian) and is undoubtedly a Christopher Dean piece. He wore a beige costume with the shirt long in back and a purple cummerbund, while she wore a stunning red and purple dress. The choreography was amazing, with some very complicated lift sequences, and it was skated with lots of flow and deep edges. The dance is focused more on lifts and creating a mood than in packing in the difficult footwork, which seems to be the trend with all the top dancers this year. Considering that Margarita had her knee bandaged all week, I was very impressed by how strongly they skated in all three phases of the event. They kept up excellent speed throughout this dance and had a mesmerizing feel. There are some garbled vocals (speaking) near the very end of the music.
Next up were Lobachova & Averbukh skating to "Jesus Christ Superstar" in theatrical costumes. She wore a flowy, tattery looking orange dress with a tight bodice, while he wore an unusual jumpsuit that melted from brownish-white at the bottom to bluish-white at the top. There was a somewhat subtle cross design on the front with a yellow sun rising behind it, and everything was topped off by a shiny headband. I described the costume as representing the ascent from the grave into heaven (well? why not?) The free dance began with Ilya on the cross, Irina curving around his legs, and the choreography included many interesting shifts in "power dynamics" with one or the other partner becoming "used" or manipulated by the other. By the end of the dance, Irina is in cross pose, carried aloft by the e'er- toiling Ilya. I must say she seems to do a better job lifting him and/or lifting herself than he does lifting her. :-) Ilya, eat some spinach. Anyway, the choreography was much more delicate than what I've seen from them in the past, quite sensitive and with a lot of intricate moves. Overall, the skating difficulty was not very high, and the impact of much of the choreography was muted by a feeling of lack of power and ice coverage. Perhaps they were not skating this one "all out," since they have the capacity to do this stuff with a bit more punch to it.
Punsalan & Swallow did their "death by Elvis" medley yet again and skated it very well. Do I need to say anything else? I did comment while they were doing one of their many gliding poses that they did look like they would be awfully fun to do, especially at that rate of speed.
Bourne & Kraatz drew to skate last (quelle shock!) and did their much-awaited "Riverdance" number in plain purple costumes, hers with lace over the middle and arms (I think). The program began with several quick step sequences that were not terribly difficult but for the speed at which they were performed and theoretically, the unison (they'll be working on improving that all year, it wasn't much in evidence here). Unfortunately, this music is *VERY* fast and although they did an admirable job of keeping up with it, it would be practically impossible for any skater to use the beats of the music in the same way that a tap dancer could. I thought they did a very decent job, but it still was a bit lacking in comparison. The second section of their program is all lifts and hydroblading, and then they do more footwork at the end. Almost everything is side by side and not in holds or with arms around each others' backs. There was a section at the end with mutual twizzling which was cute. I think Victor actually was better at it than Shae-Lynn. I wasn't nuts about it, but it's far better and far less cloying than last year's free dance. If P&P and K&O are doing artistic masterpieces, I don't think this one will stand up, but I've certainly been wrong before.
Go Back to Competition and Show Reviews Index