Thanks! I love Mao's costume with the fan. Is she still skating to the Tango she used last year?
No, as it was reported by clovera (and could be heard in the clips) she's skating to an unique arrangement of "Caprice no.24" by Paganini. The arrangement is for piano, violin and other instruments. The fans reported that the music is very fast and has a lot of variations. Mao said that she would like to show both the cool parts and the comical parts in her performance.
According to fans' reports, she struggled a bit with jumps (in one performance she stepped out of 3T, in the other she doubled it, and had a wonky landing on 3F in one of the performances, 2A great though), but her spins were amazing and her footwork was even better than usual. She also had a new great spiral - a back fan spiral into back arabesque, during which sequence she pretended to fan herself with the fan she held (way to use 3 'fans' in the same sentence, lol).
(The jump mistakes could be caused by packed choreo and very fast tempo of the entire program.)
Mao also skated a pair program with Mai and another with Jeff Buttle.
Her program with Mai was skated to "Lady Marmelade" and was very cute. Mai seemed to have lost some weight and was in good shape. :agree:
Costumes:
http://img248.imageshack.us/i/maomai02.jpg/
Mao and Jeff skated to "A Whole New World" from "Alladin", portraying Alladin and Jasmine. The audience loved it!
http://img18.imageshack.us/i/maojeff02.jpg/
Takahiko Kozuka debuted his new SP, "Bold as Love" by Jimmi Hendrix. Fans think he might have borrowed an old costume from Evan (very simple black pants and shirt).
Miki Ando skated to 'Bring in 'da Funk' this time. I love the program, but I wonder how long I will have to wait for 'Requeim', which is reportedly fabulous, but Miki skated it only in shows that weren't broadcasted...
News clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOABa_sUcsU <-Mao
http://www.dailymotion.pl/user/ippan...news0725_sport <- All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJQEKkiOWU <- Mao & Mai
http://www.sanspo.com/sports/images/090725/spm0907251758000-p1.jpg <- Mao's Caprice
http://www.sanspo.com/sports/photos/090725/spm0907251758000-p3.htm <- Mao & Miki in their intro outfits
http://www.sanspo.com/sports/photos/090725/spm0907251758000-p4.htm <- Miki's Bring in 'da Funk
http://twitpic.com/bkybi <- Tanith tweeted a pic of her and Ben. Love the sequined fedora
http://iup.2ch-library.com/i/i0003105-1248530762.jpg <- Mai and Takahiko have grown moustaches.
(It's possible! I read it somewhere that either his coach or father is a good friend of Frank Carroll's, and Taka used to train at Carroll's rink for a short period of time.)
