Icenetwork.com has article on ballroom expert Elena Grinenko, on the top 3 US ice dancers from their nationals performances. "A Ballroom Perspective on Top U.S. Ice Dancers" by Lois Elfman.
It was a very interesting article, and very complimentary to the top 3 teams, and to Zoueva & Shpilband. Grinenko was astonished that D&W, S&S, and C&Z had the same coaches, which she regards as the highest praise to their coaches.
Well, I liked what she said about Singles. Singles do not have any personality on the ice. They skate for points, and do not show individuality. While I suppose Bradley shows individuality but it's meant to be comedy only.
Cheers to Chock and Zuerlein for doing character driven dance. Maddy does a great Sally Bowles, and Greg is surprisingly good as the gay Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret. It was nice to see them get some props from the dance world for that. I hope they do something with characters again next year; it seems to suit them really, really well.
Agreed, doris - re: C/Z. What the character piece does is allows Zuerlein to really step it up. He's been allowed to fade to the background in previous dances this team did, so it was particularly gratifying to see a dance pay equal attention to both.
It was great to see individual praise for all of the teams. I agree that Madison and Greg do a phenomenal job of committing to those characters. They remind me of a young Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey!