Zoueva's programs | Golden Skate

Zoueva's programs

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Well, now we have seen the first set of new programs for Virtue & Moir and Davis & White since the breakup of the Zoueva-Shpilband team. What do you thinK? Is the choreography more ornate at the cost of timing, unison, speed, and precision?
 

ImaginaryPogue

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
Ummm.... I think Die Fleidermaus debuted so freakishly strong last season, such that we tend to ignore that both teams grow their programs over the season. I think both these programs need time to grow because both teams are tackling something they haven't done before (D/W are tackling genuine romantic connection, V/M going for dark and dramatic). Just watch Eleanor Rigby or Il Postino or Funny Face in their early incarnations and you see just how much they reworked/worked those programs to get them at the level they eventually got to.

If they're still struggling in March, I'll agree with you. But for now, I'll withhold judgement.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
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Jun 27, 2003
I'm not so sure Zoueva and Shpilband are as strong seperated as they were together... he's obviously the technical eye in a lot of ways... cleanliness seems to be more his forte... I'm really not a fan of either of the programs they just don't seem to be well thought out... I dunno if they have potential to come together and really gel like they should.
 

KKonas

Medalist
Joined
Oct 31, 2009
So far, it seems that Zoueva & Shpilband were better together. Zoueva often has flashes of choreographic genius but it doesn't always work and I don't think she is much of a technician. She has hired Oleg Epstein but I don't think he is as good as Shpilband, and even Shpilband had limitations, technically. So both coaches need to find someone with the talent the other has.
 

Kitt

Final Flight
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Feb 1, 2007
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Wonder if Shpiliband would have fixed that wonky awkward lift that cost V/M points in the short -- you know, the one where someone said Tessa was hanging like a corpse.

Seems like he's needed now to clean that one up!
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
So far, it seems that Zoueva & Shpilband were better together. Zoueva often has flashes of choreographic genius but it doesn't always work and I don't think she is much of a technician. She has hired Oleg Epstein but I don't think he is as good as Shpilband, and even Shpilband had limitations, technically. So both coaches need to find someone with the talent the other has.

partnerships on the ice and in the coaching wings seem to only happen once in a career-lifetime... is it even possible they can split and both (or either) be anywhere near as successful?
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
No, and one need only look at music. What were Lennon and McCartney without each other--not as good. Would Steven Tyler lose his mojo if Perry's guitar riffs didn't inspire him? They were an amazing team and I liked Igor's team better at SC. I'd give em the gold. Voir's left was a mess, really horrible and you don't see that at top ice dance levels. And I think there were obvious mistakes, and very sloppy skating from Tessa in the FD. They get rep judging all the time. They are the current Torvil and Dean, can do no wrong, except I never saw Torvill and Dean skate that badly.

I preferred the Italians. Meh, the top 5 teams in the world are so good. It is like who should get an oscar. I could never be an Ice dance judge. I have three golds a silver a bronze and 2 pewters! I'd be like the holdout on a hung jury. I could never makje up my mind when all skated clean. heck, I'd flip a coin. What is better-Mahler or Die Fledermaus? It depends what floats your boat. I am for giving the shibs a world gold. I almost wish it was wait your turn like the old days of ID, LOL.
 

Kitt

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I preferred the Italians. Meh, the top 5 teams in the world are so good. It is like who should get an oscar. I could never be an Ice dance judge. I have three golds a silver a bronze and 2 pewters! I'd be like the holdout on a hung jury. I could never makje up my mind when all skated clean. heck, I'd flip a coin. What is better-Mahler or Die Fledermaus? It depends what floats your boat. I am for giving the shibs a world gold. I almost wish it was wait your turn like the old days of ID, LOL.

I love the Italians too. Yes, the top 5 are good and we ice dance fans benefit from that. And I could never be a judge either!
 

FSGMT

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
The quality of the choreography and the interpretation is still the same, the variety in the elements is good, but both V/M and D/V now need (for me) a REAL technical coach, like Shpilband was... Their StSq received low levels and they're now having more trouble with the twizzles than they had a year ago... They look less refined, less secure in performing their elements, the ones that received high scores (like the last lift from D/W FD) are the ones they kept from last season, so it's a kind of :think: for me... We'll see, I think it's too early to give a complete judgement.
 

dorispulaski

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One caveat in judging either team: Tessa was not well immediately after the FD, and likely was having trouble during it; and Scott hit her by accident early on in the SD, according to interviews. I can't think that anyone should think that their performance at SC wouldn't be affected by that. Consequently, I can't make any comments about their training.

Meryl & Charlie's SD was wonderful, and I was lucky enough to see it live. It's surprising, and manages to give the YP gorgeous silliness it should have while feeling like a ballet. So difficult to pull off! The levels they received in the SD are fairly typical of what they had been getting at the beginning of a season-except that for one of the 2 segments of the YP (the second one), they hit all the key points. Usually, they would not be hitting all the key points this early in the year, so it looks like Maurizio Margaglio did a decent job with them there. The problem with the first sequence of YP may partly be that the ballet toe hopping sequence is too close to it (That toe hopping stuff has to be hard on the legs). A little rest sequence might have been in order. The toe hopping & YP are close so that the program will come to a smashing conclusion, but I think perhaps a little space would have been a good thing. It's a fact that they had a problem with the final lift so that it went overtime, and perhaps some of that was costume related or training related. It's not typical for Davis & White to have any problems with lifts, although it has happened once or twice in their career before. It's possible that Igor would have set that up better.

The FD was again one that was their second FD of the season (they ditched a Sinatra program), so they haven't had as long to train it as you'd hope for. We were rather spoiled by Die Fledermaus, where they appeared like they had had the program for a year at its debut. The Notre Dame de Paris program is pretty good seen live, but I'd perhaps do some tweaking of it, particularly the middle sections.

I think one of the bad effects of no Igor is that there is no one to remind Marina that there are almost no points for "connection", passion, not skating a young love program, etc. Clearly both teams have spent a lot of time working on doing stuff that is non-typical for them, perhaps too much so.

And with both teams having lift problems, I do wonder what's going on there. I thought Johnny Johns did the lifts? And he is still with Marina.

Igor was interviewed by the Russian press about the dance in Skate Canada, and I put up a thread for that. It might be pertinent here, but I thought it deserved its own thread.
 

heyhey

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 31, 2011
Well now we have seen 2 of the 3 Canton teams. It will be interesting to see what the Shibs do. As for D/W and V/M - I will get worried if by the GP final their levels don't improve - then we can hijack Platov from New Jersey...in terms of their lifts both teams have the most difficult by far - so it doesn't surprise me that there are still glitches...but in general I think we need to remember that both teams are trying new elements and that the programs are solid...let's see what the other teams from the DSC bring....

On another note - Shpilband's teams for the moment have been cleaner but you cannot compare the difficulty of programs...

Doris - I agree that Tessa was probably not 100% for the FD but still the overall performance was good...
 
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dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
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Actually you can compare the difficulty of the programs. All teams plan level 4 elements. Always.

Where the difficulty between the teams varies is the transitions. In all the disciplines, I think, the grading of transitions is kind of fuzzy: that is that if you are doing a transition, there isn't a lot of emphasis on whether it was a harder or an easier transition.

In the rules, AFAIR, it's clear that hand in hand skating is considered less hard, but other than that, the grading system, again AFAIR, doesn't really rule on whether waltz hold is harder than kilian hold for example. It just says use a variety of holds, and hand in hand does not count as a variety. In the same way, progressives don't count to speak of as difficult in steps. No one says whether a closed or open choctaw is harder or a bracket or a rocker is harder.

In fact, you will see posters who are knowledgeable disagree heatedly as to what is and isn't a more difficult set of transitions, or steps, or turns, or hold :slink: A lot of the time, their comments seem driven by what school of skating they were themselves brought up in, as well as by whom their favorite team is, as much as by their knowledge :slink: IMO anyway.

heyhey, I agree the performance was good, but I think the precision of the tech suffered a bit. The discussion here was whether losing Igor for tech made the difference. I tend to think a tummyache made the difference, except possibly in how secure the lifts are. (Maybe the way to make the lifts secure is to change them, something Tessa & Scott will be doing in the SD for sure).
 

KKonas

Medalist
Joined
Oct 31, 2009
partnerships on the ice and in the coaching wings seem to only happen once in a career-lifetime... is it even possible they can split and both (or either) be anywhere near as successful?

Hard to say as this is just months after the split and finding compatible partnerships of this nature is not easy. Moir was quite annoyed regarding their levels at SC, and was quoted as saying that Marina "better do her homework" to get their levels up, but as I indicated, I don't think she is a particularly good technician. Guess we will have to see what changes are made during the season.
 

KKonas

Medalist
Joined
Oct 31, 2009
We also have to see what Marina has done with the Shibutani's this season. They skate in Russia and Japan. If they are having the same tech problems in their SD/FD then we can assume this is a Canton problem.
 

russell30

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 14, 2004
I saw pechalat and bourzat recently and boy they mean business, they are going to push v/m and d/w this year!! Look out!!!!!
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Hard to say as this is just months after the split and finding compatible partnerships of this nature is not easy. Moir was quite annoyed regarding their levels at SC, and was quoted as saying that Marina "better do her homework" to get their levels up, but as I indicated, I don't think she is a particularly good technician. Guess we will have to see what changes are made during the season.

:scratch: really if he has anyone to blame for having a coach that isn't as up to date on their homework it would be the skater(s) themselves... as they had the option to go with the tech coach and not the presentation coach.
 

FSGMT

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 10, 2012
:scratch: really if he has anyone to blame for having a coach that isn't as up to date on their homework it would be the skater(s) themselves... as they had the option to go with the tech coach and not the presentation coach.
Exactly! If he did say this, my opinion about his words is just :disapp: They are the ones who have to skate, not Marina!
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Did he say Marina specifically, because from interviews I always got the feeling he damn near idolizes her.

In a recent interview, PJ Kwong asked Virtue/Moir how they go about setting and reaching their goals. An interesting part of Moir's response was that he more or less said (not a direct quote) that they do discuss their goals with their coaches, but V/M also have their own private discussions that they keep just between themselves. It was reassuring (to me, at least) that he was open about their independent thinking for themselves -- as opposed to letting Zoueva or anyone else call all the shots.

And going back further, I read somewhere (in their book, I think) that before hearing Zoueva's proposed FD music for their Olympic season, V/M discussed between themselves the possibility that they would not like it and how they would handle telling her. (Turns out that when she proposed Mahler, they both immediately loved it.)

They apparently feel more attached to Zoueva than to Shpilband, but I hope not to the point of idolization.
 

CAS

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 24, 2010
Hard to say as this is just months after the split and finding compatible partnerships of this nature is not easy. Moir was quite annoyed regarding their levels at SC, and was quoted as saying that Marina "better do her homework" to get their levels up, but as I indicated, I don't think she is a particularly good technician. Guess we will have to see what changes are made during the season.

Do you have a link to this quote? I ask because I just read an article with what seems to be where you pulled that interpretation from but the context was very different from what you present. I just can't remember where I saw the article. You present it as if it was a snotty comment from Scott whereas I recall reading it as Scott saying they got too caught up in the numbers last season and would be leaving that to the coaches to worry about this season.
 
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