Scott Moir says its a piss off

[skateluvr]

Yes, I don't think Scott ever thought he & Tessa were going to lose to Charlie & Meryl if he & Tessa were both healthy. He probably thought that was especially unlikely with the competition being in Canada, and with them having great crowd support there.

Exactly, the OGM championship ego. Scott comes across as petulant, cocky. He did not seem all that caring and supportive when Tessa was injured. He looked angry when she stopped the skate. Charlie is loveable, and judges want to reward them. It is great to see a rivalry in ice dance between two great but very different couples who really have lovely programs. Scott and Tessa helped bring many new fans to ice dance after years of terrible programs. I hope he sees that as an OGM in iself!

More than any other couple Voir made me want to watch Ice dance and catch up on the scene. I hope he begins to see it is about great skating, not just his pursuit of that second OGM.

[WeakAnkles]

A few things/responses.

First, thank you to all who complimented me on the earlier post in this thread. Given the level of knowledge on display here, I was quite pleased that some of you took the time to drop me a compliment. Much appreciated.

About Bolero…Well, I could just say “what jcoates said” and leave it at that. But I want to add two things. First, I’m old enough to have seen it live on television when it first aired. And it may be forgotten now, but at the time there was a great deal of question over whether ice dancing was a “real” sport, or just, as I remember reading at the time, “Lawrence Welk on ice.” There was a very heated debate over whether to drop ice dance from Olympic competition. Bolero put an end to that debate, for the reasons that jcoates has enumerated. I’ll just add one more: it added a real theatricality to ice dance. Of course, for years after that, the theatricality got pushed, often to absurd lengths. So many couples in ice dance were ending their programs by dramatically flopping on the ice that there was a question over whether a Zamboni was needed (ok I kid, but not by much). Oh (and second), it isn’t in my personal top ten or twenty ice dance performances, but I think you underrate its historical importance at your peril. I call it the Picasso Effect: you may admire how revolutionary Picasso was as a visual artist without necessarily wanting to hang one of his paintings over your living room sofa.

Back to Voir…I think the reason I’m personally disappointed with Voir this year is that they are playing it artistically safe. I think FF is, artistically, a major step back from their last two long programs. The “jazz” section of their program is a good example. If you have ever seen the actual FF movie, Audrey Hepburn’s jazz dance is a real highlight. Of course it is played for laughs—see how silly all those bohemians are? Aren’t you glad you can see real dancing by Fred Astaire? The thing is, it may be for ha has and it may be dated as hell, but it also has something that I find Voir’s program to be missing: pizzazz. Or, if you like, a kind of vulgar ShewwwBiz quality (and so many if not most of the great American movie musicals have that to one degree or another). Voir’s interpretation is missing that for me. It’s all very nice and lovely, but it just doesn’t have that Wow! factor for me. Audrey does—she dances the hell out of it.

Given that it is not an Olympic year, I wish that Voir would push their own personal envelope the way that Marlie did last year with their tango Get messy. I think it would do them a world of good.