Free Dance - Notes & Results

[rain]

Originally posted by JonnyCoop
Exactly. As much of a fan as I was NOT of Gritshuk & Platov, I will say that that is one thing they often did right, repeating especially good movements. ITA agree with you about the music as well -- many of the dances we've seen the last several seasons could have been pretty much done to ANYTHING with no-one being any the wiser. It's like sometimes you get the feeling that the music is just on because they were told that they had to bring a tape....

Totally agree with you. Gritshuk and Platov were a team that made me grind my teeth more than once (couldn't stand them), but they DID do the repetition of particularly interesting moves which I appreciated. Seeing as how the ice dancers have the most choice of any discipline when it comes to music as they are allowed to use vocals, there's really no excuse for not properly choreographing to it. As a result of the bland choreography few teams have really distinguished themselves with a particular style. I'm hard-pressed to name a really memorable program from this year that I'd like to see again. I'm not sure that COP will improve the situation either with each footwork sequence, spin and lift categorized and given a number of points, teams will be under more pressure than ever to pack programs and change positions more and faster. Don't get me wrong, I do like COP and think it will be an improvement in most areas - dance has been crippled by name recognition judging for too many years and COP has some chance to correct this a bit - but there are still concerns from my watcher's perspective. Difficulty isn't always everything.

[Joesitz]

In future keep your eyes on Gregrory and Petukhov!!! they are Boune's pupils and it shows. They won their group round.

Also there was a Chinese team that showed great promise. We may be branching off from "Europe"s Sport" to other continents.

Joe

[Antilles]

The problem with Gregory and Petuhkov is that they are also Morozov's pupils, and it shows. It's getting so you can spot his choreography a mile away. They would set themselves apart with different choreagraphy.

[thvudragon]

Originally posted by Joesitz
In future keep your eyes on Gregrory and Petukhov!!! they are Boune's pupils and it shows. They won their group round.

Also there was a Chinese team that showed great promise. We may be branching off from "Europe"s Sport" to other continents.

Lets hope Gregory and Petukhov are NOT the future of Ice Dancing. Their very generic choregraphy is so derived, it's headache-inducing. I look at them, and I see a team trying to mimic L&T. This isn't unexpected since their choregrapher is Nikolai Morozov, the king of generic derived choreography. Their complete lack of transitional elements is also troublesome. This team has nothing to offer but tricks and crossovers. They need to get a real FD with real content if they want to be competative.

TV

[mariana]

Originally posted by thvudragon
Lets hope Gregory and Petukhov are NOT the future of Ice Dancing. Their very generic choregraphy is so derived, it's headache-inducing. I look at them, and I see a team trying to mimic L&T. This isn't expected since their choregrapher is Nikolai Morozov, the king of generic derived choreography. Their complete lack of transitional elements is also troublesome. This team has nothing to offer but tricks and crossovers. They need to get a real FD with real content if they want to be competative.

TV

Now that I think of it, its true, they seem to try to mimic L&T. I hope they'll find their own style. SOON:sheesh:

[boggartlaura]

Originally posted by thvudragon
Lets hope Gregory and Petukhov are NOT the future of Ice Dancing. Their very generic choregraphy is so derived, it's headache-inducing. I look at them, and I see a team trying to mimic L&T. This isn't unexpected since their choregrapher is Nikolai Morozov, the king of generic derived choreography. Their complete lack of transitional elements is also troublesome. This team has nothing to offer but tricks and crossovers. They need to get a real FD with real content if they want to be competative.

ITA. My interest in ice dance will decline dramatically if those two are the future. They're my least favorite team in the top 15.

[soogar]

I think that the ice dancers have the least choice of music. Yes they can choose vocal music , which I think cheapens the sport but I did like Lohse and Winkler skating to German lyrics to a German crowd, however the music has to have a definite beat which eliminates a lot of classical music. I heard that they implemented that rule b/c so many dancers were doing off the beat stuff in competition that they actually had story lines to their programs (ie printed them out and handed them to everyone to get them in the loop). This was in 1992 for 1993 season and afterward the programs started getting generic.

My pet peeve is with all of the spins. I was watching the Ukrainian 4th place finishers (the one with the dove costume) and they did several "pairs" spins though they broke them up into little chunks? (I can't describe it but you know how a real pair spin is verses a choppy ice dance spin b/c dancers aren't supposed to spin?.

These dancers are doing all these spins and lifts and I wanna see the footwork! What I liked about Navka was that the majority of their program had dance holds, face to face dancing/foorwork, great unison and not that many crossovers. I hate that a lot of teams resort to doing side by side crossovers. That should be banned in dance.

Also what's the deal with getting rid of compulsory dances? It's bad enough that most of the top teams have no clue how to choreograph a dance with basic dance holds and steps and now they're talking about eliminating the only yardstick that judges have to determine who the best team is out there? Now I might be behind on this issue b/c it's been a while when they were talking about getting rid of compulsories (it's bad enough that they got rid of original set pattern) and they might have already but I thought I'd express my views (not that I've had trouble before).

[Antilles]

Well, they're down to one cd. I'm sure eventually they drop that too. I hope they don't. It is great to be able to compare everyone, and it forces skaters to work on their technique.