Sorry don’t agree. She is a tad bit ahead of the music and that very loosely goosey arms, legs and body gyration is just too overdone it looks so uncoordinated and not aesthetically correct. Some of the movements need to be controlled and hers was just too splayed out, thrashing almost. Prefer the more controlled, not so exaggerated movements of Alyona, graceful yet hitting the musical beats perfectly. Also that dance choreography was awful but somehow Alyona made it less cringe. Yikes.
Respectfully, I disagree. Anna's movements are exactly the way you need them to be for the sort of dance they're doing. It's the choreography and the style you might not like but in the end, that's what they're doing and Anna responds to it perfectly. She was on beat the entire time and very obviously so the best dancer of the group.
I do think this is Aliona's problem as well - her movements are controlled, fluid and smooth and the style of dance that they're doing in Tutberidze's off-ice choreography lessons is sort of hip-hop like, often exaggerated and what you called "thrashing". Aliona (and Daria Usacheva) would greatly benefit from being allowed to do the more classical sort of dancing, I feel that would be more true to their style and would showcase their abilities better.
In general though, this video does show that Anna is the best dancer because it looks like she can respond to any style well. However, what we're judging is the skating and not the dancing and readernick has explained very well (imo) why Aliona still looks like the better SKATER overall. Anna is musical but her lack of skating skills greatly limits her and makes her look juniorish. Aliona, however, is artistically mature, moves very well on the ice and performs too. And it's not just princess-y, slow type of music with one facial expression that she can do, like it was said by some last year. The Twilight program is bad but it has one simple but effective advantage: it allows Aliona to show that she can be fierce and sassy and entertaining. In the end, Anna is the more musical skater without any doubts. And off-ice I would watch her any day. But on ice Aliona just has that sort of special quality that you cannot teach - just like you can't teach innate musicality. This, in combination with her skating skills, makes her the more artistic skater and the one who should receive the overall higher components. Now, I do wish Anna would improve on her basic skating because with Aliona's SS (and her jumping technique) she would be even more of a total package than Aliona is. But right now, with the sort of flaws that she has, she isn't. This doesn't make her bad, of course, her PCS should still be the second highest of the 3A and in "interpretation of the music", she can even beat Aliona. And her TES can help her win over Aliona any day. But the other parts of the components, Aliona has her beaten fair and square and yes, a great part of that is due to skating skills, posture and overall movement on the ice. Again, skating and dancing aren't the same sport. So, Anna is the better dancer but Aliona has the sort of qualities that make her the better skater.
My two cents on this topic.
Wanted to add for Sasha... Watching the video, I did feel like she was improving and it showed me what I've been thinking for a long time as well: She's good at the "technical" side of dancing but not so much at the rest. Meaning, she hits the beats and does the moves when they're supposed to be done but she still looks stiff and sort of unnatural when dancing. Her movements aren't fluid or graceful at all and it gives more of an impression of someone having studied the choreography perfectly but not actually feeling any of it. Especially her upper body movement needs a lot of improvement.
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For the upcoming RusNats, I have a feeling Anna will repeat as National Champ unless Sasha manages to land her 5 quad layout + the 3A. Aliona is rumored to be injured and those rumors usually turn out to be true, even if I hate it. So, I don't know where to put her in my predictions. Does anyone know something more concrete? I desperately want to see her at Euros and it would break my heart if she had to withdraw (or even worse, miss the Worlds) due to injury like last year. I have nothing against Anna, Sasha or Elizaveta but I feel like these three will be the Euros team if Aliona has to withdraw. And while I like them, none of them is my favourite. So, for purely selfish reasons (and because I want Aliona to be healthy, of course!!) I hope that for the first time, the injury rumors turn out to be just that.
topic: YOG conflicts with US Nationals, so Alysa will be at Nationals instead.
pray
In my opinion, they have better use of their upper body and arms. (I once attended a talk with Polina Semionova, who trained at the Bolshoi school, and even she said she wished she had trained at the Vaganova academy instead.) That is one advantage the skaters in St Petersburg have--I seem to recall that Yuri Smekalov from Mariinsky choreographed a program for Liza T..?
