2026-27 Japanese Pairs and Ice Dance

[cocteautwin]

Right, just checked his Wiki page. It says he worked with a bunch of celebrities (I also learned that his husband is Jamal Othman So happy for Jamal!).
But do you know what other choreography pieces has he done exactly? Wikipedia doesn't list that.

A half of IAM skaters' programs were done by him. He did some of Papadakis/Cizeron programs (he came with them to Montreal from France, he was coaching them for many years already). His works are hit or miss for me. But when he's on he can deliver, one of my favourite program from him was Don Kichote for Utana&Shingo in their junior times. He also was involved in both programs of recent olympic champions (judge it on your own ). ETA: Smart/Dieck's Dune 1&2 are also his works.

 

[BlissfulSynergy]

Right, just checked his Wiki page. It says he worked with a bunch of celebrities (I also learned that his husband is Jamal Othman So happy for Jamal!).
But do you know what other programs has he choreographed exactly? Wikipedia doesn't list that.

Are you kidding? You aren't familiar with Romain Haguenauer. He's often seen in the kiss 'n cry with I.AM students. Romain founded I.AM with Marie-France and Patrice (Patch). He coached Gabi & Guillaume in France, and he brought them to Montreal. It was Romain's seminal idea to collaborate with M-F & Patch in the first place. [If you can find it on YT, there's a very informative interview with Romain some years ago on the TSL platform]. When Romain, M-F, and Patch competed, all three formerly trained together in Lyon with stellar French ice dance coach, Muriel Boucher-Zazoui. Plus, Jamal & Romain have been together as a couple for a long time.

For starters, Romain has done a lot of choreo for Lauriault/ Le Gac. He's obviously also worked with Hubbell/ Donahue; Fear/Gibson; Lajoie/ Lagha; et al. Famously, but apparently not widely known, Romain choreographed both Dune programs for Smart/Dieck, among numerous other programs. He choreographed for Smart/Diaz, too (Romain was the lead choreographer for S/D's famous The Mask of Zorro program). As I recall, Romain also worked as lead choreographer for Italian pairs team, Conti/ Macii, in their final season. Sam Chouinard does a lot of preliminary choreo work with Romain and M-F, along with other members of the choreo staff at I.AM.

In general, the famous students choreographers work with are mentioned in respective Wiki bios. It's more difficult to find a complete list of programs they've choreographed. You tend to have to know or remember from following the careers of the skaters they've worked with. Honestly, someone should start a figure skating choreographer/ choreo database.

Perhaps Ethan Peal should consider adding it to the work he's doing. In his spare time, Ethan has been working on compiling a database of ice dance elements at skatingstorage.com. He's thinking of doing something similar for pairs. On YouTube, you can find interviews with Ethan discussing this project, along with his ice dance career (he's partnered with his sister, Elliana). Check out his May 2026 interviews on This Week in Skating, and on Blades & Banter podcast.

 

[cocteautwin]

New ice dance team: Haruno Yajima & Ryota Kitamura