- Joined
- Jun 27, 2003
It is hard to compare a competitive program with a show program, but yeah, Rudy. Not a dry eye in the house.
*pretty sure* he competed with it on the pro circuit. I say it counts!
It is hard to compare a competitive program with a show program, but yeah, Rudy. Not a dry eye in the house.
///Even in "Die Fledermaus" I found Charlie to have outshone her...
And this is where profound differences in cultural context weigh in...
For Russians, and other eastern and central Europeans, a large toothy open mouthed smile by an adult is a negative at best, and at worst the sign of cognitive impairment.
And even in Canada, "a big American smile' may seem or be viewed as false or like too much showmanship attempting to distract from poor performance quality.
It was the coat and tails. Meryl, didn't have a chance.
I don't know the 'common' criticism, but my opinion is, that their performance was incredibly technical, but I felt no emotional connection to it. To me it was all about technique and speed. Especially in the last 1/3 of the program, all I saw was very rushed movements as if speed was the main point of ice dance. (and some of those moments were not nice).
If you think about that they always wanted to skate to Scheherazade, then I have to ask, where were their emotions during performing their dream program? I didn't feel any connection between them.
*pretty sure* he competed with it on the pro circuit. I say it counts!
Just in case not everyone knows what program Tonichelle is talking about, here it is. Rudy had just been diagnosed HIV positive, having already lost a brother and a coach to AIDS, plus losing his father to a heart attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHSw4EgVAP4&t=3m0s
I'd like to add, regarding Yuna's Gershwin, that that program isn't really considered iconic because of the music or choreography, but because of how brilliantly she performed it given the circumstances and pressure. Pretty much any program would have been considered "iconic" as long as she skated it clean like she did. To call the program overrated would be to assume the music and the choreography are very highly rated, which I'm not sure they ever were.
It made me question her sense of rhythm and line, not Charlie's so much. Even in "Die Fledermaus" I found Charlie to have outshone her as he showed a more natural rhythm and movement to the music. Meryl had face and big arm movement from time to time but I felt she was stiff and her lack of toe point jarring in that waltz. I find that to be true with Tanith Belbin as well. Compared to Tessa's dancing in "Funny Face" (a program I don't particularly like) or even other female ice dancers and I think Meryl looked even stiffer and more lacking in natural movement. What Meryl had with Charlie, to me, was very clever and big choreography and let Meryl shine in catchy, difficult looking moves. So that's my answer.
Didn't say that I didn't respect D/Ws programs technically, just don't relate to them at all....
The thing is, I don't get what D/W's iconic programs mean to most of you... and that was what the OP asked. Which iconic programs seem overrated to you [i.e. to me]?.
Yuna used to say best practices help you increase the likelihood of a clean program. I hope their favorites do clean both programs in olympics. If the skaters get a gold medal without controversy, the public would watch the programs until they got sick.
I never got Plushenko's Tribute to Najinksi, or whatever it was. Actually, post 2002 his programs always seemed the same. Too much posing.
I think Yuna's Send in the Clowns was under appreciated. It was, IMO, Yuna at her prime. As much as I love Danse and Bond, SITC was sublime. She had much cleaner and smoother edges, more mature presentation in SITC than her previous programs. This fancam shows how fast and smooth she glides across the ice. I still strongly believe it should have been the SP world record holder had it been scored under different circumstances.
What you call "too much posing" those were original ballet moves from Nijinsky's Afternoon of a Faun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEJXkfMYTX4&t=2m15s
Plushyfan, you and I are precisely on the same page...
I often notice that many of the postures from Russian methods of ballet are precisely what a good number of GS posters, especially from the US, find artificial or posing. I can accept though that this difference in context makes the programs come across differently, and they can't relate to them the way those raised in that dance and theatre tradition do.
Wish a more few folks in this discussion would take it in the quirky inquiring spirit intended, rather than getting down on those of us who can honestly say: No, not seeing it, sincerely.