I think Miki Ando is a fantastic skater, and has made great improvement technically this year (I love that T.Toe-d.lp-d.lp combo). However, I feel like her programs this year are just above average. They have some exciting moments, great footwork, but overall it is more a technical zest program, closer to the kind of style that she was performing 2-3 years ago.
I don't know, but I seem to perfer the artistic transformation that Miki had last year. Her SP and FP were absolutely beautiful, and I thought she connected to the music and audience better, and she really proved that she can be a musical skater. This season, it's seems like the programs were catered so that she can concentrate on her jumps. Perhaps it's a taste of style, but for some reason, I enjoyed all of Miki's performances last season, flawed or perfect. While this season, the I think she's ethier OK when she doesn't perform her best, or just merely enjoyable when she's on fire.
I agree.
Miki's programs last year had subtle sophistication and elegance. Although she herself might have yet to attain the maturity to skate to such bittersweet music and delicate choreography, they were really beautiful packages. I am sorry that she abandoned her familiar My Funny Valentine and switched to Madam Butterfly at the last minute before the Olympics, which resulted in a disastrous performance both artistically and technically.
I thought her SP this year pretty good. The heavier music matched her powerful style better. It also suited her voluptuous femininity. She did a fairly good job in expressing the slow part.
At the same time, the heavier music also seemed to emphasize the roughness in her movements, which was revealing in her LP. Because Mendelssohn is one of the most authentic masterpieces among violin concertos, it requires classy sophistication to live up to. But her lack of training in ballet crucially affected the result. Her lean posture, stiff shoulders and arms, and rough movements stood out in this kind of classical music. Although she used to have a better posture and softer arms before, they somehow appeared to have become worse (possibly because of injuries?).
These problems were less pronounced in her SP where she skated to more exotic music. She also bloomed happily when she skated to pop music, “I Believe,” at Gala. From her previous gala performances, she was very attractive when she skated to a more athletic music, “Mickey!” But a classical masterpiece does not seem to be too good for her.
I also agree that her LP this year was choreographically emptier and more simplistic than the other programs that she had had in the last couple of seasons.
But looking back the last season, she unfortunately had too many falls to let the audience appreciate the beautiful choreography. She also had a lack of stamina, shaky edges, and worse spirals. At the Olympics, she had a fall after a fall. So perhaps this year’s LP might be just the best she could have done to come back as a top skater. It was simply brilliant that she had regained her technical strengths and won the title. I don’t think that this year’s performance was her full potential or the kind of performance that everyone acknowledges as the best. But now that she has had greater motivation and newer coaches, I believe that she would transform into a more beautiful dancer in next seasons.
)
