The state of U.S. Figure Skating | Page 16 | Golden Skate

The state of U.S. Figure Skating

I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooo excited for dance next season!!!!!! I LOVE THE YANKEE POLKA!!!!!! :rock: (yes I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm in love with that dance!)
 
The Shibutani’s will always be limited in their music choices and the program choices because they cannot portray romantic themes or use music with themes of romantic love/longing. The Hubbells did that and it had a HUGE ick factor. Keifer laying his head on Madison’s stomach while the lyrics expressed sentiments of “I want you, I need you” was seriously squicky.

I’m torn on the idea of them breaking up and skating with others. Their lines, matching lines and all of the things of skating with one partner from childhood will be lost and it will take time for the new pairing(s) to gel.

OTOH, Hubbell and her partner have come along nicely and now Maddy can be as sexy as she wants with her partner and no one will say “Dude, that’s your sister!”.

As for the Yankee Polka next year, yuck, yuck and double yuck. I want Weaver & Poje to do well next year and the YP is a short skater’s dance. It was created for ice-dancer who make Capellini & LaNotte look tall. W&P really struggled with it last time it was the CD. Maybe Angelika will morph from the rhumba mistress to the Polka Police and whip them into shape.
 
dorispulaski said:
It's a lot of fun :love: and it will be better with a variety of music that is not on the ISU CD.
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Actually I love the canned music for the CDs (for the Polka Only... Midnight Blues wanted me to kill myself)

someone should contact Disney and ask if they can put a program together using the music from the Germany pavilion at EPCOT... :biggrin:
 
I love the YP! It's a fun dance and even good ice dance coaches look silly at times working on it with their students which means it's insanely HARD. :)
 
Well, it's all over. After a glorious season of my favorite rhythm and theme in ice dance, I'm going to have to polka my ear drums out. :cry:

I don't want the Shibs to split up. They work marvelously well together. So what if it keeps them from exploring romance themes in ice dance? That's such an overdone thing in not just ice dancing, but pairs. Having at least one team doing something different every season would be nice.

I'm also looking forward to Kriengkrairut/Giulietti-Schmitt getting higher profile assignments in the coming season. They had some truly lovely programs and moves this season. I hope they continue to develop.

As for US pairs, while I more than sympathize with people who aren't too taken with Denney/Coughlin, they are the most athletic and consistent pairs team the US has had in a long time. They nail their SBS and everything else with gusto almost every time. Everything else they can work on. As for Marley/Brubaker, the team has improved so much in such a short time, there's no reason to think they won't continue to improve.

Then there's the exciting new pairing of Yankowskas and Reagan! I can't wait to see how they turn out. And while I'm not very into Donlan/Speroff, lots of people seem to love them and they can't all be wrong. So that's another team to watch.
 
Serious Business said:
I don't want the Shibs to split up. They work marvelously well together. So what if it keeps them from exploring romance themes in ice dance? That's such an overdone thing in not just ice dancing, but pairs. Having at least one team doing something different every season would be nice.
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I so so so sosooooooooooo agree with this. Is it some obscure rule in the ISU handbook I don't know about that makes romance a requirement for teams to advance? Everyone seems so fixated on this (including the skaters and their teams). I'm in love with the Shiboos as they are now! The only thing they need to do is stop being the "perfectionists" they are and just go out there and dance... all the while keeping up the technique. Easier said than done, I know.
 
It's not in the rule book per se, but I can remember that the Russians said that the Duschenes should not be allowed to win worlds because they can't do romance which is the point of dance in the first place. Dancing is a courtship ritual, "the vertical expression of the horizontal desire legalized by music" was George Bernard Shaw's description of it. Dances like the Argentine Tango are all about sex - the dance between a prostitute and her client in the bordello. I'm hard pressed to come up with a way for siblings to express that in a way that doesn't make the audience feel uncomfortable. How well did the Shib's do with the rhumba (another very sexy dance) this season?

The Kerr's were very inventive in coming up with family friendly themes but then they didn't really reach the very top of the sport. I think the Shib's have the ability to reach the top, which makes me reluctant to say they should split, but they can't do Swing Kids type programs every year and get there. And given the the ISU's propensity to use Latin dances for the SD (two in the last three seasons), they need to find a way to do sexy, without being squicky. This season's SD wasn't squicky but it was so lacking in sexy that they didn't do well with it all season.
 
People are very pre-occupied with romance, so it'll be difficult for the Shibutanis. Most of the great songs are about unrequited love. It's very good, but it can be monotonous after a while. I would like to see more of the hit songs be about other things, love of science, that new car smell, freedom - anything other than how lousy you feel after being dumped.

For the tango, perhaps Alex can pretend to be the client who implores his prostitute to not sell her body in the bordello any more. And she'll say noooo and he'll say yessss and she'll say noooooooo and ta da, passion without being wierdly incestual.
 
I think there are many things you can find that are not overly romantic. Just take Die Fliedermaus from D/W. It's just a very nice classical piece. Doesn't have to be romantic- just joyful. And it looks more mature than the other dances the Shibutani's had before. P/B's pharaoh dance- you can do a dance with a story and characters and doesn't have to be romantic.
 
Dragonlady said:
Dances like the Argentine Tango are all about sex - the dance between a prostitute and her client in the bordello. I'm hard pressed to come up with a way for siblings to express that in a way that doesn't make the audience feel uncomfortable.
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I know! Alex could be a client whose eye is caught by one prostitute in particular. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. But, unbeknownst to him, she is his very own sister in disguise! WHAT A HILARIOUS COMEDY OF ERRORS!
 
Are the Shibs still mismatched height wise though? I know Maia grew a whole lot in the past couple years, but I feel like Alex must have grown too, because the height difference still looks very large and a bit awkward IMO.
 
Oh please, the Shibs have already reached the top faster than any ice dancing team in history, winning bronze in their first trip to Worlds (and all the other numerous medals they have won). That they are siblings didn't keep them from succeeding. And if something is stopping them from being even more successful from now on, it's not because they're brother and sister.

P.S. Shaw must be forgiven for seeing sex in places where there is none, after all, he was married to a woman who wouldn't put out.
 
Serious Business said:
Oh please, the Shibs have already reached the top faster than any ice dancing team in history, winning bronze in their first trip to Worlds (and all the other numerous medals they have won). That they are siblings didn't keep them from succeeding. And if something is stopping them from being even more successful from now on, it's not because they're brother and sister.

P.S. Shaw must be forgiven for seeing sex in places where there is none, after all, he was married to a woman who wouldn't put out.
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Out of 32 competitions in their entire career, they have medaled (not counting the pewter at Natl's) at 25 of them. That is a 78 percent podium placement rate.

In their senior career alone, they have medaled at nine of 13 competitions, 69 percent podium placement.

Yep, they're doomed. :sarcasm:
 
claphappy said:
I know! Alex could be a client whose eye is caught by one prostitute in particular. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. But, unbeknownst to him, she is his very own sister in disguise! WHAT A HILARIOUS COMEDY OF ERRORS!
Click to expand...

I'll be laughing over this one for days to come. What a tango that will be. We could call it the Star Wars tango, in honor of Luke and Leia.
 
The Argentine tango did not originate in brothels. And really, the theme of prostitution and sex work would make for a dreadfully boring romantic partner dance: there's very little courtship, flirtation, suspense, give and take (beyond the haggling)... Just pass the cash and get on with it! Romantic dances symbolize mutual pleasure and passion. In prostitution, things are rather unequal and motivations are rarely mutual. If authenticity and the avoidance of the squick is what we're going for here, a romantic dance simulating prostitution would fail both ideals.

The tango, like any other form of music adapted from folk origins, is music about life and all its varieties, not just romance.
 
Actually, the brother & sister Duchesnay's did an Argentine in 1988 that was based on a prostitution theme, but a pimp and a prostitute, rather than a customer and a prostitute, or at least it was said to be so based:

Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEz1xYVO-aw

Also there is a tradition of 2 men doing the Argentine as well. It would be cool to see the Shibs do that one, like Bobrova & Soloviev's Russian Sailors dance 2010 (Bobrova revealed herself as a girl at the ending pose, by removing her hat and letting her hair down)
 
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Serious Business said:
Because it's cited as one of the things the Shibs cannot do and will thus never get anywhere further in ice dancing.
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Nah, the Shibs are committed athletes and will try everything to break down stereotypical barriers.that is where they earn my respect :)
 
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