Alissa Czisny in DETROIT ice show this weekend - Report Added

Are any GSers in the Cleveland area going to the local ice show this weekend? Alissa Czisny, along with Silvia Fontana and John Zimmermann, will perform. I'd love to hear a report!

http://www.ohio.com/entertainment/18752614.html

It was also reported a while back that Alissa had given up her hinged boots and would be competing next year in regualr SPTeris. Do you think Alissa has a chance of being a factor in the U.S. ladies mix this year? Or will she have to stand by and watch the new kids on the block swarm the podium?

Is Alissa eligible for a Grand Prix assignment?

She's eligible for invites, but she isn't guaranteed anything, and there are eight girls ahead of her who are all guaranteed at least one event, two of them will definitely get two and the other six probably all will as well.

I love Alissa and wish her the best, but I feel that a change of boots is not going to be an immediate fix. Back in 2005/2006 she had a lot of change of boots and her jumps continued to struggle. I think that her confidence level is too low to be a successful competitor. Lovely skater... I hope she contiues to work with Brian and Kurt... and I really hope she proves me wrong.

Mathman, the Cleveland SC show was LAST month ... you might want to change the title of this thread from Cleveland to Detroit because I assume that Alissa Czisny is skating in her home club's annual show this weekend. It's titled "Jungle Zoo on Ice" and runs from tonight (Thursday) through Sunday, June 5-8, at the Detroit SC in Bloomfield Hills, MI. According to the club's site:
Tickets are still available at the door for all performances.
Bleacher seats are $13 for all ages.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening performances start at 7:00 pm.
Saturday matinee is 1:00 pm and Sunday matinee is 2:00 pm.

Sylvia said:

Mathman, the Cleveland SC show was LAST month ...

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May, June, all these months run together when you get to my age. :

OK, so now it's on me to go to the Saturday matinee and write my own report.

Not that it is possible to find out anything about who will be performing from the DFS web site. I guess I'll have to go and find out.

Jungle zoo, is it? Can we assume that Stephane Lambiel will be a guest skater in his zebra outfit, and Ilia Kulik in his giraffe shirt?

Edited to add: PS. There is something fundamentally out of whack with the universe if someone with a smile like this can't land her jumps consistently!

Mathman said:

OK, so now it's on me to go to the Saturday matinee and write my own report.

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Great, looking forward to reading your report! Enjoy!

Mathman said:

Is Alissa eligible for a Grand Prix assignment?

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Yes. Alissa is ranked #29 on the ISU's 2007-08 Season Best Total Scores list (top 24 are guaranteed one GP assignment and #25-75 are eligible to be selected), so she has a chance. But, as MissIzzy mentioned earlier, there are 8 USA girls ahead of her (including E. Hughes).

Mathman said:

Jungle zoo, is it? Can we assume that Stephane Lambiel will be a guest skater in his zebra outfit, and Ilia Kulik in his giraffe shirt?

[

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That is so funny.........those were some of the worst skating costumes ever!!!

Id love to hear a report from the event. I hope she is doing good and I REAAAAAALLY hoping she gets a GP event. Im hoping the boot change helps her, from the sounds of the event she skated at in May she had no problems. Lets hope she keeps with that. I wish her the best

Amen! What a gorgeous and down to earth young woman she is...and a beautiful skater as well. Thank goodness she's gotten rid of those ugly skates - to me they looked like ski boots on blades. I hope she can absorb a lot of confidence while training and pick up good tips from the pro's she's working with this summer and be truly competitive this coming season. I'm so tired of watching tiny skaters zipping back and forth across the ice, have sorely missed Michelle Kwan's elegant programs, so I'm counting on Alissa to provide some fabulous skating this season.

Mathman said:

PS. There is something fundamentally out of whack with the universe if someone with a smile like this can't land her jumps consistently!

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Report

Ok, after all that, I missed Alissa after all. She skated at the Thursday and Friday evening performances but not at the matinee that I attended this afternoon. (The publicity picture showed her in her Audrey Hepburn black-and-white dress.) I also missed Faiella and Scali, who will perform in tonight’s show.

Still…this was the best show EVAH!

I won’t give a play-by-play, but here are a couple of overall impressions.

1 (a). Star of the show: Rachel Bauld-Lee, director and principal choreographer. The choreography made the show. They need to put it on TV so they can win an Emmy in choreography.

1(b). Co-star of the show: Jane Warkentin and her Costumes and Sewing Committee. After its TV run, put it on Broadway so they can win a Tony for costumes. The theme of “Jungle Zoo” was sustained with great variety throughout the show, with every act having some sort of animal theme in both costumes and music (gotta love Crocodile Rock )

Stars on Ice should send a spy to learn how to do an opening number like the Circle of Life (from the Lion King) ensemble act that began the show. Also outstanding was a Gypsy/Flamenco number, choreographer by Pasquale Camerlengo and Jerrod Swallow, which also featured four floor dancers (not ice dancers) at the corners of the rink.

Swallow (former U.S. ice dance champion with his wife Elizabeth Punsalan) is now the Director of Skating at the Detroit Skating Club. If this show is any indication, he is putting his stamp on the program. Every act, even the soloists in singles, was chock full of dancing between highlight elements.

The other choreographic tour-de-force was Baby Bumblebees (choreo by Ms. Bauld-Lee, who is also director of the Learn to Skate program at the DSC.) This act featured the very youngest performers, skating with older soloists Megan Haase and Leah Israel. It was totally cool how both the overall blocking and the details of the act came together, for skaters at this level.

Which brings me to…

2. Number one “Life Lesson” that you can learn from figure skating: When you fall down, get up with a flourish and pretend it is part of the act! (Kurt Browning is the world champion at that! )

3. Let’s hear it for the boys! Men’s figure skating is alive and well in the Motor City. The ladies were lovely, one and all, but the boys rocked and rolled. From the smooth polish of song-and-dance man Pine Kopka-Ross (Talk to the Animals), to macho “snake charmer” Jonathan Cassar (think Lysacek, if Lysacek were more graceful ), to Trevor Young swinging down to the ice on a vine suspended from the rafters, a la Tarzan (Young was also the featured pairs performer with partner Andria Best).

Not only were there a number of advanced level male soloists (William Brewster, Ben Woolwine) and pairs (Megan Guell and Grant Marron – coached by Aaron Parchem ). But at every level there were plenty of boys and well as girls in the program. The “Baby Bumblebees (pre-school skaters) were eight boys and eight girls, The Eye of the Tiger featured 11 older boys, while the senior guys did a basketball spoof, 7 strong.

4. One to watch: Brian Johnson. I don’t know if his main discipline is pairs, dance or boys’ singles, but this kid is on the move.

5. Most satisfying tear-jerker. Why else do we go to skating shows, but to have our hearts touched? The closing act of the first half featured three performers, a little girl (Peyton Lee, I presume the daughter of choreographer Rachael Bauld-Lee), a bigger girl (Jodie Tasich), and a young lady (Ameena Sheikh) representing three stages of a girls life, as told in song by her father. The music was “Butterfly Kisses,” and the last of the three solos depicted the part in the song when Dad is about to walk his daughter down the aisle.

But what really sold the number was the technical excellence of all three skaters. Each presented a full complement of difficult jumps, spins and moves in the field, and skated flawlessly.

6. Funniest gimmick. You know how, at the movies, they put on a little cartoon at intermission, where singing bags of popcorn and dancing cups of Coca-Cola come on the screen and try to get you to buy stuff? Here they had kids dressed up as popcorn, soda, candy, etc., who skated around while the announcer encouraged us to go out to the concession stands and spend some money to support the Club. (I did.)

Thank you sooo much for your wonderful report on the show I greatly appreciate it. :yes: