2019-2020 Programs by Discipline

[Lunalovesskating]

Ekaterina Kurakova SP: Le Corsaire: Act II - "3. Grand Pas: : Adagio" and Le Corsaire: Act II - "5. Grand Pas: Variation: Medora"

Correction this is actually the music for her Free Skate. There was an issue with her music yesterday, because of that she had to skate her SP to the music of her FP.
Also part of her FP music is also: Le Corsaire: Act II - "7. Grand Pas: Coda: Ali, Medora, Conrad"

 

[SnowWhite]

A few more from Minto (I'm not watching as closely today though):

Senior Women FS
Alicia Pineault - She Was Waiting For Her Mother At The Station in Torino... by Shawn Phillips
Hannah Dawson - 'Experience' by Ludovico Einaudi, 'Circles (Experience remix)' by Greta Svabo Bech

Senior Men FS
Bennet Toman - Elgar Enigma Variations: Opus 36 Nimrod by Edward Elgar (repeat from last season)

I couldn't identify Conrad Orzel's FS music myself, but it was an instrumental piece that someone in the Minto thread said is called On the Waterfront.

 

[SnowWhite]

The two senior pairs from Minto who did the FS:

Matte/Ferland kept last season's program: Ameksa (District 78 Remix) performed by Taalbi Brothers, Sendero performed by Compania Talent Danza

Wang/Boudreau-Audet: 'Slow Your Breath Down' by Future of Forestry

 

[elektra blue]

Would you ,please, add FS for Kamila Valieva? It would be Exogenesis, part 3. Thank you.

another tequila shot here, please

 

[Sai Bon]

Not disagreeing at all.

But do you think a lot of junior skaters have life experience that is relevant to Carmen, Cabaret, Moulin Rouge, etc.?

No, of course not. But the first two are works of fiction with a strong fairytale element. I personally would not choose Cabaret or Moulin Rouge for a skater under 18 even if they are psychologically mature. But you simply can't take "Strange Fruit" out of its historical context and call it a piece of music. The lyrics are in your face and although I have no personal experience of the theme, I have nightmares just imagining it.

 

[SnowWhite]

From Minto:

Junior pairs FS

McIntosh/Toste - 'Piano Fantasy' by William Joseph (last year's FS)

Panetta/Mimar - ‘Dream’ by Imagine Dragons

Perreault/St. Louis - ’Terra Rossa’ by Havasi, ’Firedance’ by David Foster (not 100% sure for the first piece, because Shazam kept giving me different ones each time, but this seemed right)

Laurin/Ethier - Ever After soundtrack

Ripley/Brawley - ‘The World of the Heart: Main Title theme’ (Dragonheart/Soundtrack ver.) by Randy Edelman

Andrew/Daleman - Aladdin (2019) medley: The Dunes; Harvest Dance; Genie Set Free; The Wedding by Alan Menken

Carle/Farand - ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ by Elton John

 

[Ice Dance]

No, of course not. But the first two are works of fiction with a strong fairytale element. I personally would not choose Cabaret or Moulin Rouge for a skater under 18 even if they are psychologically mature. But you simply can't take "Strange Fruit" out of its historical context and call it a piece of music. The lyrics are in your face and although I have no personal experience of the theme, I have nightmares just imagining it.

I just think it's important to be clear about the reasons one has a concern about the music.

It's not just because the skater isn't likely to share that life experience.

Nor because the theme is so awful. It is awful. But so are prostitution and the holocaust. (There are multiple junior athletes skating to Moulin Rouge and Cabaret this season). Sometimes we go numb to that reaction when we have seen the same piece of music used over and over again.

 

[Sai Bon]

I just think it's important to be clear about the reasons one has a concern about the music.

It's not just because the skater isn't likely to share that life experience.

Nor because the theme is so awful. It is awful. But so are prostitution and the holocaust. (There are multiple junior athletes skating to Moulin Rouge and Cabaret this season). Sometimes we go numb to that reaction when we have seen the same piece of music used over and over again.

ITA. I imagine it's just a case of someone in the skater's team liking the song.
If the skater has a connection to the music in some way and wants to express something through the music and their skating, I am all for it.
I'm not saying that everyone should skate to happy, positive, fluffy unicorns and butterflies kind of music.
But of all the amazing music in the world, why choose a song about lynching (or prostitution or the holocaust) for a junior skater?

Anyway, just my opinion. I am pretty sick of Moulin Rouge and hope something else replaces it as a new warhorse soon!

 

[Lamente Ariane]

I just think it's important to be clear about the reasons one has a concern about the music.

It's not just because the skater isn't likely to share that life experience.

Nor because the theme is so awful. It is awful. But so are prostitution and the holocaust. (There are multiple junior athletes skating to Moulin Rouge and Cabaret this season). Sometimes we go numb to that reaction when we have seen the same piece of music used over and over again.

Er, though the Holocaust is relevant to Cabaret, I don't think the Holocaust's relevance to the songs people usually use from Cabaret is even remotely on the same level as Strange Fruit's connection to lynching. Strange Fruit is about lynching, full stop. That is what the lyrics explicitly detail. It's not like people are skating to Tomorrow Belongs To Me when they skate to Cabaret. There's a different context for the other songs. Schindler's List would be a closer comparison point, though SL doesn't have actual lyrics about gas chambers etc. (That said I'd still like fewer Schindler's List programs)

 

[Harriet]

Strange Fruit is about lynching, full stop. That is what the lyrics explicitly detail.

To be more precise, the lyrics literally describe the bodies of hanged men dangling from trees, and the way they smell as they rot in the summer heat. The song is visceral and confronting, deliberately so; in fact it was so confronting that during the Civil Rights era it was banned in many places in the US for some time, and if I'm remembering correctly, Billie Holliday used to get death threats because she refused to stop singing it. (It was always the final song in any concert she gave; before it started the waiters would stop serving and the room or stage would be plunged into darkness, with only one spotlight trained on her face, and she never gave an encore because there was no way to frame that song as just an ordinary part of a concert. Billie Holliday knew exactly how powerful and how important Strange Fruit was, shown by the way she kept singing it like that through death threads, bans and a life-destroying drug addiction, and so did Nina Simone.) It's that context that makes Strange Fruit very different from a movie score, even one on such a confronting topic as the Holocaust. Nobody has yet had to put their life on the line over and over again to perform the score of Schindler's List in the hope that doing so will help to wake up their nation.

If Starr Andrews or Emmanuel Savary (for example) ever decide to skate to it, that will be another matter altogether, but it's so very inappropriate for a skater who isn't African-American to step into that history and try to speak to it - especially one so young and from such a very different culture - that it's hard to articulate.

 

[oly2018]

Strange Fruit is a hard no for me. The lyrics are explicitly about lynching and I dont understand how nobody at any point thought that it wouldn't be appropriate for just about any skater, let alone a junior.

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

I couldn't identify Conrad Orzel's FS music myself, but it was an instrumental piece that someone in the Minto thread said is called On the Waterfront.

It's from soundtrack of the 1950s Marlon Brando film "On the Waterfront." Paul Wylie skated to it back in the 90s.

Orlov's version is not the original, IDK who the artist is who did the cover.

 

[Ice Dance]

I think those explanations are a lot clearer.

I'm not opposed to skating programs about tragedy, real or fictitious. I think skaters can bring meaning to a performance. And I don't think artists can only connect to programs from within their own culture. Nor do I think they have to tell us their personal connections to a particular story.

But I do think it really helps if an athlete is a strong performer and can do justice to the emotions the music is trying to portray. And you have to do your research. You have to know the history behind your music selection.

Because it's really easy to fall into cultural quicksand. Which seems the likely hazard here.

 

[theharleyquinn]

I think those explanations are a lot clearer.

I'm not opposed to skating programs about tragedy, real or fictitious. I think skaters can bring meaning to a performance. And I don't think artists can only connect to programs from within their own culture. Nor do I think they have to tell us their personal connections to a particular story.

But I do think it really helps if an athlete is a strong performer and can do justice to the emotions the music is trying to portray. And you have to do your research. You have to know the history behind your music selection.

Because it's really easy to fall into cultural quicksand. Which seems the likely hazard here.

I find that these types of songs about injustice/genocide/etc. are often chosen because choreographers believe the songs themselves will somehow elevate the skater's sophistication or artistry just because of the songs' subject matter, and that is incredibly cheap, offensive, and insulting.

 

[believed]

I find that these types of songs about injustice/genocide/etc. are often chosen because choreographers believe the songs themselves will somehow elevate the skater's sophistication or artistry just because of the songs' subject matter, and that is incredibly cheap, offensive, and insulting.

Yep.

I think those explanations are a lot clearer.

I'm not opposed to skating programs about tragedy, real or fictitious. I think skaters can bring meaning to a performance. And I don't think artists can only connect to programs from within their own culture. Nor do I think they have to tell us their personal connections to a particular story.

But I do think it really helps if an athlete is a strong performer and can do justice to the emotions the music is trying to portray. And you have to do your research. You have to know the history behind your music selection.

Because it's really easy to fall into cultural quicksand. Which seems the likely hazard here.

In this particular case, I don’t think that being the best performer in the world is going to cut it. The meaning of this song and its incredibly painful history of it can’t be divorced.

 

[Ice Dance]

I find that these types of songs about injustice/genocide/etc. are often chosen because choreographers believe the songs themselves will somehow elevate the skater's sophistication or artistry just because of the songs' subject matter, and that is incredibly cheap, offensive, and insulting.

I don't find that to be a particularly common pattern regarding tragedy in particular. I mean, I do find that most junior music selections are chosen to teach the athletes how to develop different strengths as performers.

But I think there is a lot more to the tragic performance tradition as a whole. There was quite a good post about the significance of portraying tragedy in Russian culture a couple years ago. Of responding to real-life tragedy via performance. As a form of tribute. I think the post might have been on FSU rather than here or I would try to search for it and try to link it. But it was a very thoughtful post and really easy to see why tragedy is such a significant part of Russian cultural tradition.

And, I would hazard a guess, also a large part of the reason it is such a significant part of skating tradition as well. Though the tragic storytelling tradition is certainly a huge part of many other cultures, as anyone who has been compelled to sit through a Greek Drama or 19th Century Spanish literature class can attest.

 

[theharleyquinn]

I don't find that to be a particularly common pattern regarding tragedy in particular. I mean, I do find that most junior music selections are chosen to teach the athletes how to develop different strengths as performers.

But I think there is a lot more to the tragic performance tradition as a whole. There was quite a good post about the significance of portraying tragedy in Russian culture a couple years ago. Of responding to real-life tragedy via performance. As a form of tribute. I think the post might have been on FSU rather than here or I would try to search for it and try to link it. But it was a very thoughtful post and really easy to see why tragedy is such a significant part of Russian cultural tradition.

And, I would hazard a guess, also a large part of the reason it is such a significant part of skating tradition as well. Though the tragic storytelling tradition is certainly a huge part of many other cultures, as anyone who has been compelled to sit through a Greek Drama or 19th Century Spanish literature class can attest.

The reality is: figure skating is not very attuned to African American cultural tradition and the themes of that song are far beyond the scope of acceptable music for competitive performance in the sport, especially in this case where no African American skater nor choreographer is involved. None of the cultures you referenced nor the sport can retroactively change what the history or tradition of that song is. The medium is just improper on every ground.

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

Jason Brown SP "I can't go on without you" by Kaleo

 

[Ophelia]

I find that these types of songs about injustice/genocide/etc. are often chosen because choreographers believe the songs themselves will somehow elevate the skater's sophistication or artistry just because of the songs' subject matter, and that is incredibly cheap, offensive, and insulting.

*cough*Averbukh*cough*

 

[Ophelia]

Moa Iwano
SP: "Strange Fruit" and "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone
Choreo by Benoit Richaud

...and the award for most offensive and inappropriate music selection goes to...