. Though I love Meryl and Charlie, I also love couples like Krylova/Ofsiannikov, Klimova/Ponomarenko, and, Denkova/Staviskiy.
I love K&O and D&S and K&P too I hope you all know that?
. Though I love Meryl and Charlie, I also love couples like Krylova/Ofsiannikov, Klimova/Ponomarenko, and, Denkova/Staviskiy.
Tatiana Navka and Tanith Belbin are about the same height (Navka is 2 cm taller, apparently); it's blink and you'll miss it, but here they are side by side on the podium in Torino, and you can see that the difference is quite small. Some skaters just have better lines than others. Emily Samuelson, who's not tall and willowy (though obviously lovely and fit!) had wonderful lines.I seems like people do not talk so much about "line" as they used to. Navka and Kostomarov had better "lines" than Belbin and Agosto in 2006, for instance. I would imagine that when it comes to lines, the longer the better. Tall and willowy beats short and petite (and blows short and not-so-petite out of the water altogether).
Doris, of you have specific videos to share of good US teams from the 6.0 era, please do!
One couple I liked a lot was Jamie Silverstein and Justin Pekarek.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL0dxsVnrdw
Yes, Tanith & Ben were put together as part of the 6.0 generation.
Here's a bunch of old US dancer videos. I'm not claiming they should have placed higher than they did in most cases, only that I liked the following programs enough by them to remember them after all these years.
Wynne & Druar do tap dancing 1990 US Nationals. The intro about the Air Force Academy and the Detroit skaters going there is really the heart of what happened at Arctic Edge later. It also has some hints about how to sell ice dance to the Olympic audience
This is a team that needed smoother lifts, but their ability to do tap on ice makes me smile, and I love the part where they do the tap dance "heads together" stunt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pixRtYmJ40U
Susie & Joe do the Charleston in 1989-I think they were a bit undermarked here. I wish I had a better vid to show. They really got the dance; a certain amount of higher ranked teams just didn't.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUzHjLkGstw
Susie & Joe - did a great Charleston. I was in Colorado Springs for a few days and watched them work on this routine. They finally won a bronze medal at the Goodwill Games after placing 4th at the 1990 Worlds in Halifax. They also spent some time talking with Gene Kelly re their tap dance routine and he gave them some helpful tips, they told me at the time.
Punsalan & Swallow " Race Cars" number to Yellow. The part about the cars going into the pits is just spot on This routine did not fit the rules of dance at the time when they had gone back to ballroom. It has too much 2 footed skating, for one thing, but I still like it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWGT0rwc5aE
Punsalan & Swallow 1998 Worlds FD Tango (they never really broke through at worlds, but at this point in their careers, I liked them better than Bourne & Kraatz and Fusar-Poli & Margaglio, both of whom always finished ahead of them)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqvN2SSZgHo
Oh, oh, oh! Jamie Silverstein! She could have been, should have been, was destined to become the greatest U.S. ice dancer of all time. She was not able to master her personal demons.
How is that possible? She was easy to find behind the boards at Worlds last year, and was very enthusiastic about W/P and P/B. Did you find the pictures of the two very cute kids that she and Camerlengo have?Such a shame. I remember that she had us at hello--the first time she skated on national TV, she was impossible to look away from. And Justin was at that time one of the few American born male ice dancers who had the skills and the talent to make an international splash. Lang's partner, Peter Tchernyshev, was of course Russian-born. Ben Agosto and Charlie White were still just a dream in the future.
This thread has been a great opportunity to do research. I went back and looked up Angelika Krylova to see how tall she was relative to her partner and read up about her post-eligible career. Man, I'm slow on the uptake. I didn't realize she was married to Camerlengo and was choreographing (and coaching) with him.
Oh, then you really must watch W/P and P/B too! Both teams were spectacular at Worlds, it was such a good event.I caught the ice dancing of several couples on YouTube last year, which means I watched Davis/White to that splendid Die Fledermaus about a million times and got distracted before looking at the others.
Umbrellas, Mahler and Funny Face were innovative and uncomfortable?All in all I find Virtue/Moir a much better couple. They are NOT doing comfortable things. They behave like their decisions to create a programme is always has a mission to show some possible new direction of this sport. They offer an improvement to this sport year by year. They are innovative, and in this way THEY act like true Champions.
I know sometimes is more difficult to understand, they usually have a complex scenario behind their programme.
I know sometimes is more difficult to understand, they usually have a complex scenario behind their programme.
About their Carmen:
I think it shows how Carmen won over Don Jose, even if she was killed by him.
The whole programme is like a dream and memory of Don Jose, waiting possibly his execution in the jail remembering the sexually-droven connection with Carmen.The ups and lows. It was NOT at all a romantic relationship between this 2, they have been addicted to each other.
Even the missing red colour shows that it is a memory from the past. It is very common to use black (dress) and white (the ice) in coloured movie citing the acts happened in the past time.
I find it incredibly talented and meaningful.