What programs do you recommend for new fans?

[4everchan]

We haven't talked much about pairs...

These are my go to :

Gordeeva Grinkov 1994... however my musician friends wouldn't agree to call this Moonlight Sonata when the piece starts with the Pathetic Sonata... (Moonlight comes at the half mark)



Salé Pelletier 2002 Love story

 

[Magill]

Talking about Ice Dance, these are the ones I share with non-FS-fans most often:
Papadakis/Cizeron from Beijing Olympics, and Nazarova/Nikitin from Worlds 2022 in France.
For very different reasons, but neither fails to send shivers down the spines of those watching, no matter how little knowledgeable or invested in FS they are.

 

[lariko]

I don't see the point of showing old stuff when things changed so much. Personally, I got hooked when seeing Zagitova and Uno in 2018 Olympics, then watching JGP the following season with Ted's commentary because Zagitova spoke of Trusova like she was awesome, and every season i get new favs from jgp. I didn't care for ice dance untill i saw Hubbell/Donohue live in practice. That was imo the best way to go. Just seeing current competitions with fast forcward, see what appeals if anything, because peeps all have different tastes and ear for music.

 

[4everchan]

I don't see the point of showing old stuff when things changed so much. Personally, I got hooked when seeing Zagitova and Uno in 2018 Olympics, then watching JGP the following season with Ted's commentary because Zagitova spoke of Trusova like she was awesome, and every season i get new favs from jgp. I didn't care for ice dance untill i saw Hubbell/Donohue live in practice. That was imo the best way to go. Just seeing current competitions with fast forcward, see what appeals if anything, because peeps all have different tastes and ear for music.

Dance has changed a lot... pairs and singles.. not so much, especially considering that new fans wouldn't make a difference between what has changed for instance (new quads etc)

 

[Arigato]

By all means, don't show Tiger Woods playing golf to any young man so he can see how it all started. It's "old stuff." And definitely don't show anyone Michael Jordan playing basketball. Way too old.

Ridiculous.

 

[TallyT]

I don't see the point of showing old stuff when things changed so much. Personally, I got hooked when seeing Zagitova and Uno in 2018 Olympics, then watching JGP the following season with Ted's commentary because Zagitova spoke of Trusova like she was awesome, and every season i get new favs from jgp. I didn't care for ice dance untill i saw Hubbell/Donohue live in practice. That was imo the best way to go. Just seeing current competitions with fast forcward, see what appeals if anything, because peeps all have different tastes and ear for music.

As you say 'peeps all have different tastes and ear for music' and everyone answering this thread knows their own circle and what might appeal to them. There have been surveys among Hanyu fans of which performance roped them in first and pretty much all had a mention but one of the biggest -? Worlds 2012. The Zagitova and Uno clips you mentioned are now eight years old and before the big changes you talk of.

When we are trying to hawk magic, bring out the most magical: always makes sense to me.

(Though let us be honest, the current fashions in music to skate by - sadboi, slash-and-hack retro for RD, the dullest possible Dunes... is nothing to try and hawk. And it is also not helped when clips of current skaters are here-today-gone-tomorrow anyway. Said 2012 performance, I could find bring up at least 8 videos with one click and even more in seconds; Mikhail S's Worlds SP, nearly all of the men's SP? - yeah no. Can't show people what we can't even find ourselves.)

(Oh, trying to woo new viewers with a 2024 clip, when you can find more than 60 Tiktok seconds, when it shows in glowing ultra-crisp 4D the number of empty seats and lack of audience engagement is quite the task, y'all. Yes, some of my own favourite performances of earlier years have sparse ones but they're not the ones I haul out as appetisers.)

 

[labgoat]

Mikhail S's Worlds SP, nearly all of the men's SP? - yeah no.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

 

[Dpbthomas1]

I suspect most of us have people in our lives who either have never watched figure skating or have a very vague memory of seeing part of a program on TV in an Olympic season. Sometimes they're content to leave it there, but sometimes they're interested enough to want to check out some programs.

So I'm curious: when this has happened to you (or if it were to happen to you) what are the programs you've found yourself suggesting most often? Do you tend to go for the classics first or something recent to show what's competitive today? Or just programs you personally adore? Are there any you tried showing someone that they just didn't get?

I'll start by saying a lot of the time I've specifically found myself trying to explain ice dance, and so a lot of my go-tos are ice dance programs. The Shibutanis' 2017-18 Mambo/Cha-Cha SD has consistently been one of the ones I show people, especially if they're curious about how ice dance evolved from ballroom dancing.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Jason Brown : Riverdance 2014
And probably the new SP version he’s doing this year
His 2014 Riverdance went viral with over a million views on YouTube (in its early days). . Few figure skaters get that sort of widespread response. Clips were being shown on morning talk shows, etc.

 

[TallyT]

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

Thank you! So a fan video can stay up while the 'official' one disappears into some void. I am downloading immediately if not sooner, but will watch whenever I can on the channel to give it clicks and encouragement.

 

[labgoat]

So a fan video can stay up while the 'official' one disappears into some void

Makes no sense right? I've been noticing the entire event file stays up longer than some individual ones.

 

[TallyT]

Makes no sense right? I've been noticing the entire event file stays up longer than some individual ones.

And the different media commentary ones don't seem to even go up (or if they do, it's hide and seek) anymore. Some of my most rare and treasured videos are from where one or another TV station put them up...