All Things Ice Dance: Canadian

[nevergonnadance]

It seems to me that you have a real issue with the Scarborough club and you're looking for any sort of flimsy excuse to bash them. All of your rants against this school smack of jealousy and an inability to acknowledge that right now, they have the best ice dancers and the best coaches in Canada.

As with a lot of coaches in Canada, that Scarborough is the best is more damning statement of the ice dance coaching situation in Canada than praise of Scarborough. The criticism of Asher and Hill's programs is not "flimsy". It's legitimate, and IMO it's borderline offensive to dismiss the criticism as flimsy.

It's also ill-advised as IMO why turn people off? Furthermore, how can any of us know what someone's opinion "smacks" of? Although they got strong (imo, inflated) scores, I thought Paul's styling (the diamond chest hair patch) was ridiculous and their performance in general tacky. I think Carol Lane and her husband did stronger work for C&P than Dean is doing for G&P.

I don't know who does the costuming at Scarborough but I never thought Vanessa Crone was costumed as well as she could have been and last year I thought Alexis Gilles was costumed like a tranny and by that I mean harsh and unflattering.

[Dragonlady]

Doris, you might know this; Has there ever been a deduction for choosing music of the wrong era? I'm curious, but I'm guessing that leaners must count, as this dance was okayed by so many.

There was a lot of music that season that was from the wrong era. Some dancers skated to music that wasn't written or performed before the mid-1950's but I don't know of any teams who received deductions for doing so.

[colleen o'neill]

golden411...thanks, Thornhill is really shaping up to be exciting. I really love some of the music from the movie score P/I are using for their FD..filled with wonderful syncopations and highlights , and with K&C as choreographers , I can imagine they'd be put to good use... and I'm very curious as to what kind of polka they'll have.

NorthernDancers .. that was an excellent post . I must agree as to the scrumptiousness of Poulin's FD dress last year. And as sad as I am to see Loudevinevitch retire ( just when I was beginning to dote on them )..can someone else please snap up her costume designer and seamstress ? The SD dress was beautiful , too, though it maybe didn't reflect latin dance so well.

I feel like a piker in the news dept. Here I am in BC , but I'm completely outside the loop as far as hearing any gossip goes , and have no excuse to go and hang out about 8 Rinks ..and if I had an excuse , I still wouldn't have a car to get there ... ( It's torture , I tells ya..) I'm so hoping for newsy reports from Lake Placid .

O/W..what are you skating to.. and has Keith Gagnon been lending Thomas any dance expertise over the summer ? Since I saw it rumored that Keith would be joining the coaching team , I can't stop thinking what an asset he would be .

cleoc.. I really like both B/L and E/P , and think both guys are excellent partners.

[slipslidin]

There was a lot of music that season that was from the wrong era. Some dancers skated to music that wasn't written or performed before the mid-1950's but I don't know of any teams who received deductions for doing so.

Exactly, Dragonlady, I was asking Doris, because I don't remember any such deductions. Would you be kind enough to mention some examples of music from the wrong era used that year?

[colleen o'neill]

Dragonlady , I just noticed your costume post and though I was willing to let go, before that...find I must reply. many people have detailed what they thought was wrong with the various costumes they referenced , but you just slap on a label, and don't say why.

your example 1 :

http://photography.ice-dance.com/201...-ow-mh.jpg.php ....Nicole's dress is quite lovely and flattering . I don't approve at all of Thomas' tunic..never understood it and said so at the time.Is it supposed to look like a shirt and vest ? why not use a shirt and vest ? ..but overall, as a couple , far from hideous ,

Your example 2 :


http://www.ice-dance.com/events-resu...homas-williams
.. Unflattering and ugly ?..In what way ? I see a girl with a very nice figure wearing something very simple, not over decorated, but that probably was a bit skimpy in regard to % of body coverage ... and you'll note the whole dress was changed next time out. ( that's called learning from mistakes ) Thomas is just fine in basic black.

your example 3 :

http://photography.ice-dance.com/201...-hg-mh.jpg.php

your label is simply Harvey and Gagnon Yes, it is ... now this is a hideous costume (Tarrah's)..ugly, too many components unappealing colours and a poor concept of depression era style . I criticized it roundly and at length at the time .( so did many others ) Keith's is not quite as bad, but still ,hardly what you'd call good. I think I said they looked more like modern dumpster divers than a depression era couple.

your example 4 : what was she thinking ? ..In spite of the file name , this is not Harvey and Gagnon..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20...h_Gagnon_2.jpg
...Whoever they are , I remember this travesty of a dress ( might be called wretched , too ).. I seem to remember shreiking when they took the ice...however, as I recall, this couple finished too far down the ranks, for me , to warrant commenting about it on the boards.

your example 5..labelled Paul and Islam ..yes...

http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=Paul+%...m0tC7Bg&zoom=1 ...What is this an example of ?... this dress has not a lot wrong with it style-wise.. but the colour doesn't cry out Latin , and they could've done with an even softer fabric for the skirt/ wrap. It could have been better ( I would have preferred a bit more flamboyance ) , but it's neither garish , nor too naked, nor is it unflattering to Alex's figure. Mitch is just fine.

A few of your examples are truly bad costumes ,and have been criticized as such , but since when did one bad costume excuse another ? Or is it that you feel no one else has been criticized ?

I was going to search out a number of counter examples of the " Elite " variety, but I don't really want to spend my time in such a depressing way and the examples have already been cited ad infinitum. Just to name the very worst..

C/P - flamenco , Orpheus ( at least two incarnations of each ), 2011 SD ( multiple tries )..leaving Ragtime aside as well as numerous other more minor transgressions ...

R/H - Cinderella , Marigold..excluding Summertime ( which was only bad for Asher's costume and the stereotyping ) and ignoring numerous other more minor transgressions.

( and I won't go on at length about G/P, though I didn't like their costumes last year, particularly the SD. We'll see what they come up with this year. )

The Lane school has certainly not been the sole recipient of costume criticisms. It's that they've had multiple examples , and every time one is mentioned their fans and friends instantly respond as if a personal attack has been made . Naturally, posters want to defend their positions when no personal attack was intended ... and the whole discussion gets derailed.

[ImaginaryPogue]

In YOUR opinion.

Really, I'm sick of all of the negatively being directed at the Lane school. Can we move along or is this the ONLY thing you can do, crap on Lane and her skaters?

Dragonlady, you were the one who said that every other male ice dancer in Canada was neither as talented nor as hard working as Paul Poirier - nothing we've said about Paul matches the sheer derision you hurled at that moment.

But I liked the Ragtime costume, though.

[blue dog]

Dragonlady, you were the one who said that every other male ice dancer in Canada was neither as talented nor as hard working as Paul Poirier - nothing we've said about Paul matches the sheer derision you hurled at that moment.

But I liked the Ragtime costume, though.

Paul is very hard-working. However, he and his partner will need to work EVEN HARDER to overcome Weaver/Poje. Those behind Gilles/Poirier will need to work EVEN HARDER than them to overcome them.

Of course, at the top of all of this, Virtue and Moir need to work harder than everyone to keep everyone in the chase pack.

[dorispulaski]

Exactly, Dragonlady, I was asking Doris, because I don't remember any such deductions. Would you be kind enough to mention some examples of music from the wrong era used that year?

I don't think any music deductions were taken that year; I don't remember any. This year, we started to see some deductions for music & costume-tentatively.

The 2008-2009 season was supposed to be dances of the 20's, 30's & 40's.

C&P were doing the 10's (Ragtime)
DomShabs were doing a 40's Shostakovich Waltz and claiming it was somehow a jazz waltz, which seemed bogus to me at the time, but the costumes were wonderful & spot on at CoC (she is dressed reminiscent of Sonja Henie)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKTHgMRbko
Not quite so much at Worlds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTKQ3qMiRTM

Belbin & Agosto were doing the very late 1940's, with the bobby sox & beret on Tanith & a white dinner jacket on Ben, but the music was from a Liza Minelli movie about tap dance that was filmed much later. However, the requirement was that the style of the music & dance was to be typical of the era, and it was, kinda sorta, and the costumes just squeaked in. (About the same level of annoyance as C&P)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxybmmSHwo0

V&M and D&W both did Charleston, which was 1920's-Meryl's hat was a bit odd, but otherwise she had on a decent flapper dress & Charlie was in a dinner jacket with a loud vest, which is fine for the era.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_D2YpwB4bw
I didn't like her World's dress as well, but at least the funny hat was gone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksnV68NptjI
Here's V&M-the costuming was OK; pretty but not particularly 20's evocative, but not egregiously so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTPFg1SONC0

Pechalat & Bourzat-Blues & Lindy Hop. Costumes are OK for the era, but not my cup of tea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jizvF3GPXF8

Khoklova & Novitski Blues Swing
He's in a zoot suit sort of thing (fine), she's wearing a lettuce costume
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2k_gewwUrE

Delobel & Schoenfelder were doing a vaudeville revue team of a Naughty WW2 nurse and patient
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX20x7RRXHc
to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and about 4 other music cuts

Yeah, vaudeville existed.

[Dragonlady]

Dragonlady, you were the one who said that every other male ice dancer in Canada was neither as talented nor as hard working as Paul Poirier - nothing we've said about Paul matches the sheer derision you hurled at that moment.

But I liked the Ragtime costume, though.

That's not what I said, I said the bashers appeared to be fans of skaters who were not as talented or as hard working. Paul won his first senior GP medal in ice-dance when he was 16, and went to his first GPF the following year. He could not have accomplished this if he wasn't both talented and very hard-working. Have any of the other teams mentioned as being hard done by, been this successful?

[emdee]

Dragonlady, I agree that Paul is extremely talented ( and maybe hardworking too). Along with Vanessa they had that certain something. Their blades whispered on the ice and I was only 10 feet away from them at COP last year. Watching them so close I understood why the judges placed them higher than W&P in past years. In comparison with their elegance and grace P&I looked finished on the outside only and that was a good year for them.
Now of course Piper has a lot to do to catch up and surpass other teams. They are both very young and the next two years will tell the tale. I intend to see them at Thornhill and of course Nats. They have good energy and a nice vibe together and relate well to each other. Now its a question of her technique.

[slipslidin]

Thank you, Doris, you are so informative (and a tireless researcher). I thought the judges had, so far, not been sticklers in that regard. And I had fogotten 'the Lady and the Houligan'. How many men can skate in a full suit of clothes, including hat and scarf, and look so good?

Thank you Dragonlady, for researching bad costumes for us. Orford and Williams can be proud to rate two mentions. I believe the main objection to the blue costumes was that they looked all wrong with the gold medals, to some people. In the second picture, their costumes probably make them look too unfairly attractive.
The second 'Harvey and Gagnon' are actually Arnold and Trojek, coached by Paul MacIntosh, but I agree their costumes are as bad as any worn by Harvey and Gagnon.
Paul and Islam look adorable without any excess flattery by her costume.

It seems the Lane school is above all comments good and bad, and despite my fondness for Ralph and Hill, I plan to try to refrain from mentioning Scarborough. All other Canadian skaters are fair game, though.

[skatingfan04]

I remember being very impressed with the Scarboro school for many years at Thornhill, where they win just about everything each year, but that was back when they had a lot of teams in junior and just entering senior (and certain deficiencies were more forgivable). Now that they have teams firmly established in senior, I'm starting to wonder.

What worries me is that multipe teams from that school seem to suffer from the same problems. Costuming, which has been discussed at length here, is one of them. It's not that one team has a bad cosume once in a whil, it's that the majority of their teams end up with unflatteing costumes every year. While I don't think the costume makes the skater, having a bad one definately detracts from the presentation. Aesthetics isn't the only issue, though. There are certain flaws in technique (i'll cite bad posture and improper carriage as an example, though there are others) that seem to be common to a lot of their teams. With the problem being widespread amongst the school's teams, you have to wonder if there is a flaw in the way that the skaters are being instructed.

All of this being said, I have the highest respect for the coaching team there (I've seen how they interact with their skaters at Thornhill, and have been impressed time and time again by how wonderful the coach/athlete relationship seems to be) and think that they produce high quality teams. But, if there teams are to become world cass, I think they need to relaize that some of these problems need to be addressed and deal with them. There's nothing wrong with calling in outside help (look at what David Islam had P/I do this summer, and that's team that I feel does not suffer from any of the issues I've listed above) if it will benefit the skaers in the end.

This, of course, is all my opinion, and others may feel very diffrently.

[dorispulaski]

It needs to be said that one of the good things about the Scarborough coaching team is that they very often come up with interesting, new moves for their teams, and I salute their creativity in that respect.

But it is exactly why it is so frustrating to see their teams hampered to some degree by what are ultimately cosmetic issues, some of which are easy to fix (hair, costumes), and some, that while more difficult to fix (posture & carriage) are fixable. One does not spend one's breath (or typing energy) complaining about stuff that can't be fixed in teams that have no talent. It is exactly because there is talent at Scarborough, and coaching talent as well as dancing talent, that people talk about their shortcomings.

But defending shortcomings never fixes them, sad to say.

[Dragonlady]

But defending shortcomings never fixes them, sad to say.

I'm not defending shortcomings but I'm a glass half full kind of person. I would rather discuss the postive attributes of the teams from all of the schools, than trying to elevate my favourites by bashing those being placed above them.

[blue dog]

We're not bashing anyone by saying they should fix their costume, posture, or ponder why so and so is ahead when they have obvious shortcomings compared to the teams below them.

I believe we've discussed these same issues with other schools (please look towards the earlier posts, when we mentioned how the Hasegawas, especially Conor, need to fix their speed and expressions).