Well-Balanced Choreography

[skatinginbc]

A well-balanced program is often defined with required elements (e.g., the numbers of jumps, spins, and steps). We can also argue that a front-loaded or back-loaded program is not balanced, nor is a program with all tricks but nothing in between. But what are the features of a program with a perfect balance between techniques and artistry? I personally think the following programs are well-balanced:
1. Elena Berezhnaya & Anton Sikharulidze's Lady Caliph (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enegcJGB4NY).
2. Michelle kwan's East of Eden (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTO6104VEqc).
3. Jeffrey Buttle's Rachmaninov's Prelude in C Sharp Minor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSbTaxPgexA).
4. Alexei Yagudin’s Winter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEfR4dQ8wAw).
5. Sasha Cohen’s Sentimental Walts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1gJ5H3ubfA)
All of them have either pose-holding glides (e.g., spirals) to showcase the beautiful lines or simple acts/moves to create a mood. By simple, I mean “easy to the eye”—simple but profound. It is the well-balanced mixture of simplicity and complexity that gives rise to a sense of great artistry. That is my personal taste. What is yours?

[cosmos]

YuNa's Tango de Roxanne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCAs...watch_response
All elements including jumps are really well balanced. Combination of technique and artistry. She was only 16!

YuNa's Gershwin Piano Concerto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc35PYNEQMk
Another well balanced masterpiece.

[FlattFan]

Very well-balanced, simplistic SP. One of my all time favorites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmyUwtmch9w

[snejina]

One of mu all time favourite SPs, as well as to remember Trankov with Maria Mikhortova!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COUq81QLm7Q

[Olympia]

BC, I'm glad you included Sasha's Sentimental Waltz on your list. That's one of my favorite programs of hers, and at the Olympics she skated it masterfully. It's splendid and unusual music (which to me adds a lot to the appreciation of the choreography).

One of my favorite programs of all time (keeping in mind that I'm biased toward Michelle) is Kwan's Lyra Angelica. I don't know how it would translate to CoP--I'm sure it would need adaptation, but the way it used the music was gorgeous.

Can we count ice dance? If so, Davis/White's Die Fledermaus goes on the list. What a treasure that program is.

[Mathman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTO6104VEqc

I hate what the new judging system has done to figure skating.

[ImaginaryPogue]

COP programs that comes to mind

Jeremy Abbott: "A Day in the Life"
Jeffrey Buttle: "Naqoyqaatsi"
Patrick Chan: "Tango dos Exilados" and "Aranjuez"
Crone/Poirier: "Eleanor Rigby"
Delobel/Schoenfelder: "The Piano"
Domnina/Shabilan: Tango OD
Dube/Davison: "The Blower's Daughter"
Faiella/Scali: "The Emmigrants" and "Moonlight Sonata"
Kavaguti/Smirnov: "Claire de Lune"
Yu Na Kim, "The Lark Ascending"
Takahiko Kozuka: "Jimi Hendrix"
Stephane Lambiel: "Poeta"
Murhktova/Trankov: "Appassionata"
Joannie Rochette: "Aranjuez"
Savchenko/Szolkowy: "The Mission" (and virtually every long program they've done)
Matt Savoie: "The Mission"
Akiko Suzuki: "West Side Story"
Shen/Zhao: "Who Wants to Live Forever"
Daisuke Takahashi: "In the Garden of Souls" (and his Tango)
Takahashi/Tran: "Feelin' Good"
Virtue/Moir: Every program they've done, but especially "Mahler"

[3T3T]

My favourite programme from Maria Butyrskaya, her short from Worlds 2000 in Nice. She really should have got 6's for the second mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVt3I4IL18s

[SkateFiguring]

My favourite programme from Maria Butyrskaya, her short from Worlds 2000 in Nice. She really should have got 6's for the second mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVt3I4IL18s

And her legs get a perfect 10.

[deedee1]

Very well-balanced, simplistic SP. One of my all time favorites.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmyUwtmch9w

I love this program.
Especially those lovely twizzles at the end of straight line steps!

I did not even know it was called 'twizzles' at that time, but I fell in love with this Mao's angelic moves at first sight.

[krenseby]

My favourite programme from Maria Butyrskaya, her short from Worlds 2000 in Nice. She really should have got 6's for the second mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVt3I4IL18s

That program seems to demonstrate two of her strengths: great/edging stroking and use of body/posture to interpret music. I wonder whether folks watching the 2000 Worlds live appreciated the tremendous talent she showed in the SP. I watch this performance with so much pleasure; it has stood the test of time. It is still great skating today. And yet I have a feeling that despite all this, Maria is largely a forgotten skater even within the confines of Russia. She doesn't appear on the various professional shows in Russia nor do we ever see her skating in exhibition in the US. Seems like her World title hasn't helped her establish a name for herself. Oh well, I am sure there are still a few like me that haven't forgotten her.

[seniorita]

^ I m not sure but either she writes on a blog or she writes in a column cause I ve read parts of articles with her talking about fs frequently, I dont know but I read her comments often, maybe she is coaching?

[skatinginbc]

two of her strengths: great/edging stroking and use of body/posture to interpret music.

There was one strength of Maria Butyrskaya that I hardly could detect from TV until I actually watched her skate live: She had a great command of the ice.

[LeReveur]

Don't think you're alone in appreciating Butyrskaya. I don't know if there's any ladies' skater I enjoy watching more than her. I was fed lots of garbage by American commentators, but I never once let them skew (as they often did) the reality of what Maria accomplished on the ice.

[Sara D]

I agree to all of the above examples of combining the technical with the beauty of the sport. Since I am very interested in choreography, I really believe that this is important for our sport - but new ISU rules such as making the spiral sequence not a compulsory element have made programs so technical - where the step sequences are just so jam-packed with so many turns in every direction, it sort of loses the meaning behind the program - is it to gain points or telling a story... any thoughts?