least favorite winning performances

[Antilles]

A&P are my favourite skaters ever, and I agree that the 2002 FD was weird, and their worst FD ever. I was actually re-watching the Olympic DVD and noticed that the MLK speech was removed from their performance. I'm not sure if it's because NBC didn't want to pay the rights, or if they were offended.

B&K 2003 win. I was happy to see them finally get that elusive world title, but I didn't like the program. Cheap knock-off of A&P and many Russian teams. I think D&S should have won last year.

FP&M 2001. What were the judges thinking?

G&P 1998 Olympics. Requim did nothing for me.

Lipinski 1998. She deserved it, but it did nothing for me.

Yagudin 2000. Too many errors. Hard to believe it was the best of the night.

Buttle's win at this year's 4ccs.

E&B in 1996. Pairs was a real snooze for a while.

 

[VIETgrlTerifa]

As far as "I Have a Dream" being done by American ice dancers, I was just imagining it would be far tackier and more literal. I can just see the sequined flag outfits.

Oh Flora, why did you make me imagine this? *shivers*

 

[SusanBeth]

"I'm going to put my hand up your skirt now, remember its for world peace!"

Thanks I needed a laugh !

 

[aliaschick]

Least favorite winning progrmas:
Jeff Buttle at 4CC this year. I mean I love him but that progrma sucked
Inoue & Baldwin at US Nationals this year
Lobacheva & Averbukh at 2002 Worlds and anything they won in 2003. That was not a great program IMO
Viktor Petrenko in 1992. I love him and was happy that he won, but the program lacked a lot of things
Fusar-Poli & Margaglio's 2001 FD. A&P should have won
Katarina Witt in 88. Manley should have won.
B&S in Salt Lake. Sorry but Sale & Pelletier should have won.
I don't know, probably more.

 

[mpal2]

I would have to say any of Plushenko's programs. I understand why he wins on a technical mark, but his choreography drives me insane. Plushy, get thee to a new choreographer pronto!

 

[soogar]

I thought that NBC made way too much of a big deal about MLK's speech in A&P's program. I'm probably going to get flamed, but I think that it was a typical white liberal knee jerk reaction. I didn't care for the program mainly b/c I liked A&P's Romeo and Juliet and other programs. However I thought that it was very interesting that they chose MLK's speech in their tribute to freedom. I think many Americans are uncomfortable with the fact that there is still a lot of racial friction in this free country and A&P using that speech illustrates that Europeans are quite aware of the racial tension in our country. I thought it was quite bold of them to use the speech and bring MLK's words to a world stage that will be viewed by millions of people. I don't think we were in war at the time, however I wonder if perhaps their program was maybe a little swipe at the US supporting Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion? There is criticism that we supported Osama's rebels in an effort to get the Russians and maybe this was a swipe to the US getting involved with other countries to promote liberty yet there isn't full liberty and equality in the US (yes I'm stretching it here).

A&L's program: I wasn't offended by their program at all. However I didn't like their program b/c A&L are a sorry shadow of the ice dancers the Soviet Union used to put out. They are very weak with their difficulty and their skating is shallow: no use of deep edges or dance holds that I like to see in a balanced program.

 

[icenut84]

I don't think we were in war at the time, however I wonder if perhaps their program was maybe a little swipe at the US supporting Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion? There is criticism that we supported Osama's rebels in an effort to get the Russians and maybe this was a swipe to the US getting involved with other countries to promote liberty yet there isn't full liberty and equality in the US (yes I'm stretching it here).

You think? I thought it was more likely that they were maybe trying to give a message about what the speech stood for, that it's as important today as it was back then. Or maybe that the fact that the Games were in the US swung the decision, since MLK was American. Or maybe they just thought of the idea of doing a free dance based on the theme of Liberty, and the speech/music worked for their ideas, and maybe was somehting different that nobody had done before.

A&L's program: I wasn't offended by their program at all. However I didn't like their program b/c A&L are a sorry shadow of the ice dancers the Soviet Union used to put out. They are very weak with their difficulty and their skating is shallow: no use of deep edges or dance holds that I like to see in a balanced program.

The Soviet Union? Marina is Russian, yes, but Gwendal isn't, and they skated for France. The Soviet Union didn't train them as a team, France did.

 

[taf2002]

I was pretty offended by L & A's 9-11 program, esp the costumes, which I thought was in horrible taste. The ashes in the hair & the burned dress-ugh! They did tone it down at Worlds though.

I don't like talking in a skating program, but I guess if you're going to have talking, MLK is the way to go. This is way OT but I think every American woman regardless of race should revere him for what his movement did for women. But I still didn't like A&P's program. It wasn't in bad taste exactly, it just struck me the way political speeches do at the Oscars-maybe it's the right message but the wrong venue. When I watch skating, I want to be entertained. It's too bad A & P didn't save Carmina Burata for the Olys.

I absolutely hated everything about Oksana Baiul's Oly LP. The music choices were trite, the costume garish, the choreography was juniorish, and the execution was sadly lacking. It was hard to believe this was the same skater who had done that gorgeous Swan Lake SP. I remember after she skated wondering if she would get 2nd or 3rd-1st never occurred to me.

 

[soogar]

A&L= Averbukh and Lobacheva
They did skate for Russia

 

[icenut84]

A&L= Averbukh and Lobacheva
They did skate for Russia

Oops - sorry. I though it was a typo and you meant A&P.

 

[RoaringMice]

Inoue and Baldwin's performance at this year's US nationals. It was great that they won, but they had so many mistakes. I'd been wanting them to win, but would have loved them to win with a better skate.

 

[dorispulaski]

TV,
The second question that I did not answer the last time was about Goya and the place of portrayal of various types of tragedy in the arts in general. I don’t have any credentials as an art critic. I majored in Physics and Latin and minored in Ancient History and Mathematics. Any comments I make about art are informed only by my own native foolishness and by the scraps picked up in the study of ancient history. As a post, it has taken me a long time to put together, and I apologize for the delay.

Flora MacDonald made the most telling criticism. Upthread she questioned whether ice dance is an appropriate medium for serious messages. Mel Brooks certainly would agree with her. He chose to end movie History of the World with a spurious advertisement for History of the World Part II, promising a segment of Hitler on Ice. A fake teaser clip was shown of a skater dressed as Hitler in German military uniform hitting Jackson Haines-like poses and completing a double jump. It was very funny. I might not go that far. I thought S&B’s Chaplin programs (both the competitive and the exhibition) were both brilliant and serious. But I would agree that ice dance is not the easiest medium to use to convey serious messages.

I would not prohibit L&A, A&P or anyone else from putting on any program they like, on any topic that they would like, including their WTC performance. I believe in freedom of speech and performance. However, I would reserve to myself the right to either like or dislike the program, based only on my own whims, rather than any broad strictures about Art with a capital A. And because we are talking about a sport, as well as an art, I would hope that the judges would follow Chris Dean’s advice from commentary in 1990 US broadcast. Paraphrased quote: You cannot deny anyone the right to say whether they like it or not ... they should just judge it for what it is. It is a dance competition ... a honest person can try to assess the relative difficulty of the dances and make judgments about all the things that relate to artistic impression. End Paraphrase

There have been a lot of reasons that depiction of tragedies is popular. The most popular is the desire of the victors to record their winning campaigns. I recall a picture of Assyrian ladies relaxing in the garden with the heads of enemies hung off the trees as one of the most casually bloody I have ever seen. In ancient Greece, attendance at the performance of tragedies was an encouraged religious and civic duty. In the days before television, another reason was simple reportage. Currier and Ives brought out a series of prints of shipwrecks that sold well and were on the walls of many nineteenth century homes, for example. A number then of these tragic artistic productions had simple financial motivations. The people who rubberneck at highway accidents are showing a blatant curiosity about tragedies that leads them to buy the newspaper the next day. There are those people who simply like to stare long and hard at gruesome scenes. From time to time, some productions were meant as social critique and commentary by the artist. Turner’s Slave Ship reports an actual event, and I am not clever enough to know whether he was just reporting, or whether he was expressing an opinion, contrasting the reaching hands of slaves and the brilliance of the heavens, foretelling the oncoming “Typhon.” It is interesting that Turner seems to have kept the violence rather schematic, rather than explicit.

I don’t see Goya’s 3rd of May painting as particularly unusual or shocking (remember I have no art critic credentials). The painting was commissioned by the Commission of the Regency Council, which governed Spain after the defeat of France, to commemorate the martyred defenders of Madrid, who were executed by Napoleon’s soldiers. As such, this picture falls right into the long tradition of commemoration of the deaths of martyrs, though secular in this case. In fact, the picture is very reminiscent to me of many representations of the Stoning of Stephen, for example, even though the martyrs are a secular rather than religious martyrs in this case. This isn’t the greatest representation of Stephen but you can see the general point:

http://www.bethelks.edu/services/mla/images/martyrsmirror/mm bk1 p006.jpg

In Goya’s painting, the chief Madrid martyr is portrayed as unafraid, his arms spread as for the crucifixion, in front of a church steeple in the background. He is standing in a brilliant shaft of light. The French soldiers are portrayed as dark, Satanic clones, shooting the martyrs. This is exactly how martyrs are generally portrayed. While there is considerable gore in the picture, this is not unusual for Goya, who (in my opinion) had a very peculiar taste in wall art for his own house. See the following link to “The Black Pictures” which Goya painted as murals on the walls of his own house, particularly the picture of Saturn Devouring his Son.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/goya/goya.saturn-son.jpg

However, graphic depiction of the violence is a typical feature of art that commemorates martyrs, as a review of the illustrations in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (English ed. 1563) and the Mennonite Book of Martyrs (Luiken, 1685 edition) will show. Depicting martyrs very graphically has been a standard technique of both governments and religions. Not only do such depictions increase the group solidarity, they also incite the faithful to retaliatory violence to “protect” the innocent and avenge the death of the innocent martyrs. The performances of Medieval Passion plays were often followed by pogroms, for example.

If you wanted to insert L&A’s production into this artistic series, they are obviously doing a depiction of innocent martyrs, but instead of leaving the martyrs the figleaf of courage in the face of death, they stuck with reportage, and the victims are shown running like rabbits. At this point, it’s how the observer interacts with the piece. Here are some ways the program could be interpreted:

1. Some people see nothing in the program, and they just like it or not based on the skating and composition. (several have posted here)
2. Some people flashback to the WTC event and are offended. (me)
3. Some people find it an offensive Schadenfreude, akin to laughing when the fat tycoon slips on the banana peel. The US as victim is a cause for celebration in some quarters, and people in the US know that. Such people might have the suspicion that this is an appeal to non US judges to share and enjoy that emotion with the performers, who would then hope for better marks than they might have gotten otherwise.

 

[Mathman]

Great post Doris. But I really, really, really hope that your very last point is wrong. I hope that no one, not even the enemies of the United States, would try to read into that innocent dance program a notion of celebration over the deaths of the 9-11 victims. Or that international judges would look for or reward any such thing. I hope not. I hope not.

Mathman

 

[icenut84]

Flora MacDonald made the most telling criticism. Upthread she questioned whether ice dance is an appropriate medium for serious messages. Mel Brooks certainly would agree with her.

BBC commentator Barry Davies wondered about that too. After A&P's free dance he said "I don't understand what one of the most compelling speeches of the last century, from Martin Luther King in [where he gave it] in 1963, has to do with skating and a sporting event is completely beyond me. But the crowd not bothered, and I doubt the judges will be either. But I think it's a trend that should be stopped pretty quickly."