Plushenko & Morozov | Golden Skate

Plushenko & Morozov

Ptichka

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Jul 28, 2003
Original.

Plushenko prepares his secret weapon
Text by Boris Khodorkovsky (Gazeta.ru)

The best Peter skaters have started preparing for the Olympic season. Coaches and choreographers work hard with their students to create the most advantageous programs for the most important championship in four years. The smallest details count

The most experienced teacher Tamara Moskvina, holding on to a secret dream of conquering her fifth Olympic peak with the young team of Yulia Obertas and Sergei Slavnov, chose for the short program a rather over-used soundtrack from "Snowstorm" by George Sviridov. However, the two-time World champions Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin are working in the US with that same music. Of course, everyone can skate to the same music, the rules say nothing about it. Yet Moskvina is now at a conundrum - Peter Chicagoans will surely skate to the lyrical "Snowstorm" much better than Yulia and Sergei, who tend to do better with character compositions.

The last Olympics in Salt Lake City clearly demonstrated the results of a bad choice of program style. Having won the pre-Olympic Worlds in ice dance, the Italian team of Barbara Fussar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio decided they could get away with anything.

The set out to concur the Olympics to a song by Gloria Gaynor. Yet this fiery dance was clearly not in their style, only highlighting Maurizio's lack of technique.

Natalya Linichuk, working with Irina Lobacheva and Ilya Averbukh, worked hard to harden this perception. She used that same music for a program for her other students a brother and sister Swiss team of Hugentoblers. The effect was astounding. At the same time, she chose the music for her Russian team meticulously, going through dozens of choices.

Sometimes it happens that the coaches and choreographers hit the target on the first try. That's what happened with Alexei Yagudin 2002 Olympic short program "Winter", created by the coach Tatiana Tarasova and the then beginning choreographer Nikolai Morozov. This was what won Morozov his reputation of a genius choreographer.

Evgeny Plushenko and his coach Alexei Mishin have taken into account their experiences at the Games. Four years ago, they took a long time in choosing the music for the free program, going from the "Life of an Artist" composition to the "Moulin Rouge" soundtrack to the umpteenth version of "Carmen", ultimately loosing to the main opponent. Peter skater wants to approach Turin in full armor. To this effect, Morozov flew to Saint Petersburg from America, having become in the past few years one of the most popular choreographers in the skating world.

"Winter" brought him fame, and Morozon squandered many original ideas of four years ago on the programs of Brian Joubert and Takeshi Honda, of Sasha Cohen and Michelle Kwan. Though in the last season the ex-partner of Tatiana Navka has visibly improved, especially in footwork choreography. According to Mishin, this is the element that his young colleague is now working on with Plushenko.

According to Morozov's students, the 2005 World bronze medalists from Ukraine Elena Grushina and Ruslan Goncharov who are now in Saint Petersburg, their coach is creating new Olympic programs for Plushenko.

In any case, almost two weeks of cooperation with Morozov should bode well for the Olympic preparation of the three-time World champion. The guest specialist is working with his in full force. It's not by accident that he brought with his not only the Ukrainian dancers, but also Hungarian Julia Sebastyen. Normally, skaters come to Morozov's training camp for 4 to 5 days for a program. Some, like Michelle Kwan, do it in three.

A special poignancy of the current visit comes from the fact that one of the most popular ice choreographers has already created Olympic programs to the two potential opponents of the Russian skater - Brian Joubert and the reigning World champion Stephane Lambiel. We can only bow to Mishin the master. He has safeguarded himself from unfavorable repetitions not only of music, but of all details. Besides, according to un-official sources, the American guest has received a generous compensation. As a result, Plushenko will get from Morozov an original work, which could, in an even situation, tip the Olympic scales in his favor.
 
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Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin
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Jul 28, 2003
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Thanks Ptichka for the translation. Interesting read. It will be exciting to see what Morozov comes up with for Evgeni, more intensity or drama, or both? :laugh: :laugh:

Dee
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Thank you, Ptichka. That was a funny and unfortunately accurate paragraph about Fusar-Poli and Margaglio, LOL.

In Plushenko's case, I don't think he needs to worry too much about finding just the right music or squeaking out a tiny advantage in footwork. If he's healthy his superiority in jumping consistency will sweep everything before it.

Interesting comment about Morosov "wasting" his original footwork ideas on Joubert, Kwan and others. First, I'm not sure how "original" the ideas were that he gave to those skaters. They all seemed a lot like "Winter" redux.

It was indeed wasted on Joubert, who, in trying to copy Yagudin, just made himself look silly with that Morosov toe-tappy stuff. Michelle made it work great in Aranjuez -- her footwork was the highlight of her National and World Championship performances that year.

But as always, it's, "what have you done for me lately." By the next year (Tosca) we were starting to get bored and looking around for something new. (Or maybe Michelle just didn't perform it quite as well in 2004).

The Hugentoblers: http://members.aol.com/Sk8Mom52/hugent_2.jpg

Mathman
 

Zanzibar

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 22, 2003
Mathman said:
It was indeed wasted on Joubert, who, in trying to copy Yagudin, just made himself look silly with that Morosov toe-tappy stuff. Michelle made it work great in Aranjuez -- her footwork was the highlight of her National and World Championship performances that year.

Mathman

Well, it isn't Brian's fault. He actually had the 'toe-tappy' ice-pick steps that you refer to placed successfully in his VERY successful short program 'Time' way back in the Fall of 2002 - and long before he had an alliance with Yagudin or Tarasova. Additionally, those footwork ice-pick steps were SO effective that when the music paused and he launched them - almost Irish-jig style - across the ice at Skate America 2002 - the entire arena erupted. It really was THAT moment that Brian connected with the American audiences and became a force.

Last summer when Tarasova was designing new programs and I watched the practices I told him if it were me, I'd drop the toe-pick maneuvers now - because with his new formal relationship with Alexei - there would be too many comparisons and griping. He said, "But Tatiana says these steps will be my trademark - my signature move."

So, really - those steps had nothing to do with Morozov. Brian and his choregrapher back in France in 2002 inplemented them - and then Tarasova decided to capitalize on them, which was a strategic mistake I still believe- they just didn't work in last season's programs.

This season it would be wonderful to see Brian skate like he did in Matrix, Time, and Untouchables: music he was comfortable with, and performed truly in his own style. Let's face it - if he hadn't crumbled in Moscow for the LP - he would today be the reigning World champion - and most people wouldn't care either way about the toe-picking as everybody loves a winner.
 
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heyang

Record Breaker
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Jul 26, 2003
Ptichka said:
"Winter" brought him fame, and Morozon squandered many original ideas of four years ago on the programs of Brian Joubert and Takeshi Honda, of Sasha Cohen and Michelle Kwan. Though in the last season the ex-partner of Tatiana Navka has visibly improved, especially in footwork choreography. According to Mishin, this is the element that his young colleague is now working on with Plushenko.


Adding that Quote was from translation - not neccessarily Ptichka's opinion.

The 'sqaunder' might be a rough translation. I certainly feel that MK and BJ highlighted the footwork in TFTB and 1492. Also, MK won Nat's and World's the 1st year with NM - which makes squandered a particularly harsh word in this context. As for everyone else, I think they lost due to their errors - not bad choreography.

As someone else pointed out, Joubert is suffering from being compared to Yags due to their coaching relationship, which was emphasized much more than the name of the choreographer. Brian may have done the toepick work 1st, but Yags did it as the champ and that is what will stand out in the general public's minds.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Zanzibar said:
...those footwork ice-pick steps were SO effective that when the music paused and he launched them - almost Irish-jig style - across the ice at Skate America 2002 - the entire arena erupted. It really was THAT moment that Brian connected with the American audiences and became a force.
I was there! Everyone was looking around saying, who's this new guy Bree-ahn and why haven't we seen this before?!!!

Heyang, I, too, wondered exactly what "squandered" meant. Maybe the Russian writer was saying that Morozov gave some of his best ideas to these American and French skaters, which he could have saved for Plushenko.

But I don't agree at all about 1492. I thought the footwork was totally out of place, like he just lifted it wholesale from an entirely different program. (Plus, it always took me the first two minutes or so to get past the costume and start watching the skating!)

Zanzibar, true, everybody loves a winner. But I think if Brian had held it together at Worlds and won we would be saying, "Wow, look at those quads! Now if he could just get some better choreography next year..."

MM
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Brian did a good SP and with emotion at Worlds. Not particularly awesome but it was nice. He had a poor season. As we make excuses for the Mets, we say they were in a slump but wait till next year.

Evgeni is untouchable. Reading that article it seemed like everyone connected with choreography in Russia is outstanding, and Evgeni will will be the best because of them. I think he will win even if he wings the performance himself. He's a married man now and has more maturity than he did back in 2002.

Joe
 

Ptichka

Forum translator
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Mathman said:
Heyang, I, too, wondered exactly what "squandered" meant. Maybe the Russian writer was saying that Morozov gave some of his best ideas to these American and French skaters, which he could have saved for Plushenko.
Actually, I just went back to the original, and realized I misunderstood the original word used in the article. The correct word was "растиражированы" (as opposed to "растранжированы") - meaning copied many times over.
 

Eeyora

Final Flight
Joined
Aug 4, 2003
While I don't think Plushenko needs Morosov the the formula may work. Although I enjoy Plushenko's program because they're unique. I think the problem with Morozov's program is we soon saw the pattern in each program. I agree he created masterpieces for Yagudin and I have high regard for Michelle's Aranjuez and The Feeling Begins.
 

curious

Final Flight
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Zanzibar said:
Well, it isn't Brian's fault. He actually had the 'toe-tappy' ice-pick steps that you refer to placed successfully in his VERY successful short program 'Time' way back in the Fall of 2002 - and long before he had an alliance with Yagudin or Tarasova. Additionally, those footwork ice-pick steps were SO effective that when the music paused and he launched them - almost Irish-jig style - across the ice at Skate America 2002 - the entire arena erupted. It really was THAT moment that Brian connected with the American audiences and became a force.

Last summer when Tarasova was designing new programs and I watched the practices I told him if it were me, I'd drop the toe-pick maneuvers now - because with his new formal relationship with Alexei - there would be too many comparisons and griping. He said, "But Tatiana says these steps will be my trademark - my signature move."

So, really - those steps had nothing to do with Morozov. Brian and his choregrapher back in France in 2002 inplemented them - and then Tarasova decided to capitalize on them, which was a strategic mistake I still believe- they just didn't work in last season's programs.

This season it would be wonderful to see Brian skate like he did in Matrix, Time, and Untouchables: music he was comfortable with, and performed truly in his own style. Let's face it - if he hadn't crumbled in Moscow for the LP - he would today be the reigning World champion - and most people wouldn't care either way about the toe-picking as everybody loves a winner.



the coreo was not good,but a great skater can make even a bad program look good. unfortunately joubert does not have yags personality,passion, or connection with the audience to make it work. plushy's wihdrawal and mediocre performances in moscow are the only thing people remember:biggrin:
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Oh, I don't think so at all, Curious. What I remember most about the men's side at Moscow was the overall improvement in artistry compared to competitions we have seen in the past. Lambiel, Buttle, Lysacek, Weir, Sandhu, all brought something of interest to their performances, despite all the technical mistakes.

I think this was important, because nobody really knew which way the CoP would push the sport, toward the artistic side or the athletic. So far, neither of the the two dire predictions have come true, and the sport seems to be cruising along at an even keel under the NJS.

Joubert is a lot shyer than Yagudin, certainly so on the ice, and it seems like in personal life, too. It depends on your own style, which type of personality you like best. If Brian lands all of his jumps in Torino, I'll bet the audience will like him just fine.

Mathman :)
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
curious said:
the coreo was not good,but a great skater can make even a bad program look good. unfortunately joubert does not have yags personality,passion, or connection with the audience to make it work. plushy's wihdrawal and mediocre performances in moscow are the only thing people remember:biggrin:
Curious - Bite your tongue. I was there with a slew of Americans and we were flawed by his withdrawal. It was a sad evening for Evgeni in his home town from everyone in the arena.

Joe
 
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