The Dance Hall 5: Ice Dance Fans 2017-2018

[barbarafan]

I'd love to see the CD's back too, but even this year in the Rumba because it's about edges, the difference between teams was something already, even if it was one section. I guess judges might have got bored to see 30 patterns in a row.

Next year, it's a much longer one. Which bring me to this : is there any elements that is going to be left off for the Tango SD ? Because the Pattern takes quite the time. Isn't that why they cut off the No-touch in the waltz SD in 2015-2016 ?

EDIT : Okay, I'm sorry for being the biggest figure skating geek, but I compared times.
Rumba Pattern = 18 seconds
Tango = 55 seconds

I loved the CD's especially when they did closeups of the feet..you could really see a diff. in the teams.

 

[Dobre]

The Junior Worlds short dance starts tonight (AKA in the wee hours of the morning my time).

Elek is the caller. Good luck to all! (Might need it).

 

[levineismine]

Won't be able to follow much live this time but sure will be watching YouTubes after. Rooting for C/P to win and Lajoie/Lagha to grab a medal!

 

[Dobre]

Rooting for Lewis & Bye, Carreira & Ponomarenko, the Germans' voidy FD, and Ushakova & Nekrasov's Be Italian.

 

[chapis]

Junior Worlds 2018 SD

1. Skoptcova/Aleshin 66.44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B8pkONifko
2. Lajoie/Lagha 62.39
3. Ushakova/Nekrasov 61.29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgVy7ekMf7A
4. Shevchenko/Eremenko 60.95 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDkpBvM1kso
5. Green/Green 60.86
6. Carreira/Ponomarenko 60.85 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBDSTpoOeI

 

[chantilly]

Thrilled for the Canadians.
Saw them at Nationals and they are a team to watch.
He in particular stands out.

 

[Anyasnake]

Thrilled for the Canadians.
Saw them at Nationals and they are a team to watch.
He in particular stands out.

They are very strong. Made a couple of mistakes maybe this time but I would have them above the americans in PCS in pretty much all category although I didn't pay too much attention to Composition. Very strong skating skills and very powerful. Hope they at least stay second

 

[Lara111]

They are very strong. Made a couple of mistakes maybe this time but I would have them above the americans in PCS in pretty much all category although I didn't pay too much attention to Composition. Very strong skating skills and very powerful. Hope they at least stay second

I think all Russian teams have stronger FD and they are just visually more pleasant

 

[Anyasnake]

I think all Russian teams have stronger FD and they are just visually more pleasant

Oh I thought the Russian S/A really stood out, as well as S/E (after rewatching it, my stream was bad quality). But S/A in particular are so elegant compared to the rest of the field.

 

[RoseRed]

Thrilled for the Canadians.
Saw them at Nationals and they are a team to watch.
He in particular stands out.

Yeah, she's great, but I was really watching him. He has that extra something. But they're both good performers. I think she also does some acting work.

 

[Twilight1]

Just finished watching NBC coverage on the TV with my husband...

My husband's comments for the Oly freedances were hilarious...

"As a skater I get that the French are good... but haven't a hundred teams skated to this music?"

My response, "to be fair about a hundred people have skated to Moulin Rouge..."

Husband- (he used to ice dance and was a novice that did senior dances (only boy in his club) so can spot good technique) "I don't understand why the French scored so high in the freedance... they didn't do anything original."

Ummmm what? They are organic on the ice!!



I don't know if this marriage is going to work...

 

[chapis]

"I don't understand why the French scored so high in the freedance... they didn't do anything original."

Ummmm what? They are organic on the ice!!
I don't know if this marriage is going to work...

Well, if your marriage does not work, give me his phone number, reading his comments I think he could be my soulmate

 

[Anyasnake]

Just finished watching NBC coverage on the TV with my husband...

My husband's comments for the Oly freedances were hilarious...

"As a skater I get that the French are good... but haven't a hundred teams skated to this music?"

My response, "to be fair about a hundred people have skated to Moulin Rouge..."

Husband- (he used to ice dance and was a novice that did senior dances (only boy in his club) so can spot good technique) "I don't understand why the French scored so high in the freedance... they didn't do anything original."

Ummmm what? They are organic on the ice!!



I don't know if this marriage is going to work...

That's actually quite interesting because I've heard veteran skaters and commentators saying how they reminded them of the "old" times, I'm guessing somewhere before 2000. Not in the style but in the skating.
And depending on your husband's age of course (not trying to guess !)... Moulin Rouge was released in 2001 And since then... it changed the face of figure skating forever
Along with POTO of course. Can't have figure skating without POTO.
The French are original because they don't try to be haha

Also MS was very used before the 2000s but not so much after I think ? Well not as much ?

 

[Twilight1]

Well, if your marriage does not work, give me his phone number, reading his comments I think he could be my soulmate

He and I agree to disagree around skating. Growing up in canskate (pre Skate Canada) he has a lot of bitterness to the politics of the sport. He went into a competition and was told where he would place with his partner before he even stepped on the ice to compete... he also had a brutal and pushy dad that made Tonya's mom look like a princess.

 

[Twilight1]

That's actually quite interesting because I've heard veteran skaters and commentators saying how they reminded them of the "old" times, I'm guessing somewhere before 2000. Not in the style but in the skating.
And depending on your husband's age of course (not trying to guess !)... Moulin Rouge was released in 2001 And since then... it changed the face of figure skating forever
Along with POTO of course. Can't have figure skating without POTO.
The French are original because they don't try to be haha

Also MS was very used before the 2000s but not so much after I think ? Well not as much ?

He watched 1994 Olympics, 2002, 2010 and 2018.

He didn't watch 1998, 2006 and 2014 as I ironically worked a lot of nights and watched when he was away.

I think I made him watch GPF in 2001-2 because I saw that live... that was Chait & Sakhnovsky for Moulin Rouge.

Selective historian

 

[aftershocks]

Junior Worlds 2018 SD

1. Skoptcova/Aleshin 66.44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B8pkONifko
2. Lajoie/Lagha 62.39
3. Ushakova/Nekrasov 61.29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgVy7ekMf7A
4. Shevchenko/Eremenko 60.95 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDkpBvM1kso
5. Green/Green 60.86
6. Carreira/Ponomarenko 60.85 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBDSTpoOeI

Here's a fancam of Green/Green SD, though not a great view. There's so many empty seats, but I guess that's usual for juniors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs49oSPioLM

It's too bad that Anthony P made a mistake on twizzle sequence. That's what dropped C/P -- they had a hard time seeing their scores in the kiss 'n cry. This sport is brutal if you make the slightest mistake, particularly in ice dance, with all the depth and talented teams on the rise.

With the expected retirements in seniors, what do die-hard fans of ice dance think about how the shake down in the standings will work out, not so much at senior worlds this month but over the next season? And I wonder whether the Shibs and Chock/Bates will continue? I think Hub/Don will stick around perhaps for another year or so at least. It really is time for more talented young teams to have a chance to grow and to gain experience on the senior circuit, but it's also hard to see teams like S/S, H/D and C/B make a decision to move on when there's no pro tour to move onto and continue to grow, especially with athletes who are still so young, like the Shibs. This sport is so behind the times with its antiquated competitive structure.

 

[RoseRed]

That's actually quite interesting because I've heard veteran skaters and commentators saying how they reminded them of the "old" times, I'm guessing somewhere before 2000. Not in the style but in the skating.
And depending on your husband's age of course (not trying to guess !)... Moulin Rouge was released in 2001 And since then... it changed the face of figure skating forever
Along with POTO of course. Can't have figure skating without POTO.
The French are original because they don't try to be haha

Also MS was very used before the 2000s but not so much after I think ? Well not as much ?

Well, not Moulin Rouge this season level, but there were plenty of MS programs across skating this season. Several in junior and a couple of seniors, including Kaori. It seems to me that it's pretty common, if not an actual warhorse. Neither choice was really creative music-wise, yet both were great programs in the end.

 

[aka_gerbil]

I think Hub/Don will stick around perhaps for another year or so at least. It really is time for more talented young teams to have a chance to grow and to gain experience on the senior circuit, but it's also hard to see teams like S/S, H/D and C/B make a decision to move on when there's no pro tour to move onto and continue to grow, especially with athletes who are still so young, like the Shibs. This sport is so behind the times with its antiquated competitive structure.

H/D have already said they’re competing through 2022.

 

[aftershocks]

H/D have already said they’re competing through 2022.

Ah, thanks. Cool! I'll check out their thread.

 

[cocotaffy]

Junior Worlds 2018 SD

1. Skoptcova/Aleshin 66.44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B8pkONifko
2. Lajoie/Lagha 62.39
3. Ushakova/Nekrasov 61.29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgVy7ekMf7A
4. Shevchenko/Eremenko 60.95 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDkpBvM1kso
5. Green/Green 60.86
6. Carreira/Ponomarenko 60.85 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBDSTpoOeI

2- Lajoie/Lagha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ0V3Q-Dgms
5- Green/Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdx3ILScmFY
7- Natacha LAGOUGE / Corentin RAHIER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8r0qulSuPU
8- Chloe LEWIS / Logan BYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNa9iSzzsiQ
9- Darya POPOVA / Volodymyr BYELIKOV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVpClSELer0
10- Ria SCHWENDINGER / Valentin WUNDERLICH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KWFV7fsF2w

 

[EYGH]

First, I'd like to thank all the people who are posting all the interesting infos and links on this forum.

Second, I want to say I'm impressed by the juniors level. There is serious talent coming up in ice dance. It is going to be very interesting. The Russians are back !

 

[EYGH]

On another note I have a remark regarding the Russian ice dance teams.

IMO all icedancers are good looking, some are particularly gorgeous with beautiful lines. But their partners are not always the best match physically besides the difference sometimes in SS. I mean the team may seem unbalanced despite the gorgeousness and the skating skills of each partner.

A lot of the russian ladies have classical dancers bodies (long with long segments). Many of them have long, very long legs but their partners, while just as good looking, don't. And there comes for me the problem of balance and harmony in the team. It poses problems with the lines, the choregraphy, the lifts ...

That is what bothers me with Stepanova/Bukin. They both are gorgeous and good but her legs are longer than his. It is one of the reasons I think she has a posture problem. Among the junior Russians, the best I've seen, S/A are a close call too.

I think also that maybe that is one of the reasons A/T are separating. Angélique has outgrown her partner in all senses of the word.

It is not a matter of respective height. You have partners with little difference or bigger difference in height that are totally harmonious. But the male partner must have longer legs than the female partner.

Maybe in the future we'll see girls bigger than their Partner but in that case rules, choregraphy, lifts, ... will have to be adapted.

 

[lauravvv]

There is serious talent coming up in ice dance. It is going to be very interesting. The Russians are back !

Let me remind you that it's been just two seasons with Russians not winning Junior Worlds in ice dancing. Before Parsons and McCnamara/Carpenter it was Yanovskaya/Mozgov who won. Before that Hawayek/Baker won, but it was actually Yanovskaya/Mozgov who were favorites during that season up until Worlds already then, since they had won the JGPF and had the highest scores, but Worlds were unsuccessful for them as they made mistakes in the SD, and, despite winning the FD, could not make the difference up. And before that it was Stepanova/Bukin, Sinitsina/Zhiganshin and Monko/Khaliavin who won the Junior Worlds. All of them were considered very talented, especially Yanovskaya/Mozgov, but, except Stepanova/Bukin, who were starting to have some kind of success before Olympics, all of them have split or are not even skating anymore (in the case of Monko), and you can't tell that they have been particularly successful as seniors. After all, Loboda/Drozd are also last season's JW silver medallists who were very close to gold, but this season they did not look good at all with their senior programs.

So we simply can't tell how any of those Russian teams will fare in seniors just based on their current performances and results in juniors. We have to wait until they actually transfer to seniors and then probably a few more seasons, since it's very rare when ice dancers have the kind of success that Shibutanis, Virtue/Moir and Papadakis/Cizeron had in their first seasons as seniors.

 

[aftershocks]

ETA: I posted the below prior to seeing the previous two posts, which I agree with, so thanks for your responses.

Dance experts, what do you think about this younger crop of ice dance up-and-comers? I do not think that any of the Russians are necessarily better than the Greens or the Canadians L/L. And I think that C/P definitely should have been rivaling this field (and battling the top Russian team for top of the podium), if not for Anthony's twizzle mistake.

I also see a lot of these teams, particularly the Russians, emulating the style of Pap/Ciz, or trying to in their movement aesthetic. C/P stand out a bit more for their own style, which they are still developing. I feel that L/L, the two top Russian teams and the French team L/R have something interesting, along with the Greens and L/B (third U.S. team). But honestly, the Russians don't necessarily stand out that much, likely for some of the reasons expressed by previous posters. I think it's accurate that the jury is still out regarding compatibility and growth prospects once all junior teams make the transition to seniors. But as I said, to my eyes, C/P should be rivaling this field.

I would not have the third Russian team S/E ahead of either the Greens or C/P -- even despite Anthony's error (and the scores of those three teams are practically tied).

 

[Anyasnake]

I agree that the transistions from Juniors to Seniors has been very tough for all these years with the Russian teams. But sometimes the packaging isn't there. And you cannot rely on what you had in Juniors because the difference in skills between best Juniors and best Seniors is the Pacific Ocean (unlike single skaters where The JW champ from last year is the actual Olympic Gold medallist). You have to step up your game so drastically it can be too much for some.

Take Stepanova/Bukin for example, they are still using some of the same tricks they used as Juniors. He'll throw her around, it's very gymnastic centered, she'll do crazy split to show that she's flexible. In Juniors you think that this is impressive, in Seniors nobody cares too much about that. You have to dance at this point - that's my main issue, they almost don't dance, they do movements. But they started to understand because they kind of stopped using this trick (Ben Agosto noticed that too) and focus on their skating which is miles better this year, they've stepped it up big time.

Loboda/Drozd are another issue because they actually do have the basics, they just don't use it properly. Not everybody gets Pattern level 4, but they do. But Pavel seems to be the one with the creative mind (looking at social medai), it'll be nice for them to skate to something they both connect to and he could play a part in this.

And then you have this thing called behaviour. Russia was going to have a team who would dominate big time and they messed it up by splitting at the worst moment (read I/K). And then they pair up with someone else by splitting another team and 4 years later, 2 of them are gone, the 2 others haven't make it because you need stability, no matter how good you are.

 

[Anyasnake]

Dance experts, what do you think about this younger crop of ice dance up-and-comers? I do not think that any of the Russians are necessarily better than the Greens or the Canadians L/L. And I think that C/P definitely should have been rivaling this field (and battling the top Russian team for top of the podium), if not for Anthony's twizzle mistake.

I also see a lot of these teams, particularly the Russians, emulating the style of Pap/Ciz, or trying to in their movement aesthetic. C/P stand out a bit more for their own style, which they are still developing. I feel that L/L, the two top Russian teams and the French team L/R have something interesting, along with the Greens and L/B (third U.S. team).

I would not have the third Russian team S/E ahead of either the Greens or C/P (and the scores of those three teams are practically tied).

I am not really a C/P fan a this point. It's a bit overperformed and hides to the casual eye what needs to be corrected. Of course they are very good but I just found some better. He's obviously strong but it's an Igor team : the man presents the Lady... It could be more. They could go elsewhere or have better choreographers ?
L/L have very very strong skills and are actually dancing on the ice and are better performers everytime, to my eyes they are so much better than C/P. They are both selling it equally.
S/A are so elegant and it is actually not overperformed like their 2 teamates. It's more about lines and skating than faces.

What you say about Russians emulating P/C, I'm seeing C/P emulating Chock/Bates. Yes you read correctly. I don't really see a style for them at all, can you explain to me why they stand out in style for you perhaps ?
But then in Juniors not everybody has a proper style or a particular way of skating already.

 

[aftershocks]

I am not really a C/P fan a this point. It's a bit overperformed and hides to the casual eye what needs to be corrected. Of course they are very good but I just found some better. He's obviously strong but it's an Igor team : the man presents the Lady... It could be more.
L/L have very very strong skills and are actually dancing on the ice and are better performers everytime, to my eyes they are so much better than C/P. They are both selling it equally.
S/A are so elegant and it is actually not overperformed like their 2 teamates. It's more about lines and skating than faces.

Right, there is some work C/P have to do in order to continue to grow and improve. They definitely cannot afford to make mistakes at any point, but especially not at this event, when the sport is all about buzz and momentum. Yes, re S/A's lines, but there's just something that doesn't make them stand out for me. It probably is what @EYGH commented on regarding body lines not being a perfect match for some of these Russian teams.

I don't think L/L are 'so much better' than C/P, but I do see L/L's dancerly qualities and smoothness. But at this stage all of these teams are still in search of maximizing their strengths, minimizing their weaknesses and crafting a partnership that will make them stand out from the field as they build toward making the leap to seniors.

 

[aftershocks]

Russia was going to have a team who would dominate big time and they messed it up by splitting at the worst moment (read I/K). And then they pair up with someone else by splitting another team and 4 years later, 2 of them are gone, the 2 others haven't make it because you need stability, no matter how good you are.

Did anyone learn from this mistake though? I don't know because it was complicated by emotional matters, and a coach's coming between two emotionally immature youngsters' romantic relationship. That's what made the entire thing such a difficulty for RusFed to intervene, I suppose.

 

[Lara111]

ETA: I posted the below prior to seeing the previous two posts, which I agree with, so thanks for your responses.

Dance experts, what do you think about this younger crop of ice dance up-and-comers? I do not think that any of the Russians are necessarily better than the Greens or the Canadians L/L. And I think that C/P definitely should have been rivaling this field (and battling the top Russian team for top of the podium), if not for Anthony's twizzle mistake.

I also see a lot of these teams, particularly the Russians, emulating the style of Pap/Ciz, or trying to in their movement aesthetic. C/P stand out a bit more for their own style, which they are still developing. I feel that L/L, the two top Russian teams and the French team L/R have something interesting, along with the Greens and L/B (third U.S. team). But honestly, the Russians don't necessarily stand out that much, likely for some of the reasons expressed by previous posters. I think it's accurate that the jury is still out regarding compatibility and growth prospects once all junior teams make the transition to seniors. But as I said, to my eyes, C/P should be rivaling this field.

I would not have the third Russian team S/E ahead of either the Greens or C/P -- even despite Anthony's error (and the scores of those three teams are practically tied).

I would have put all three Russian teams above the others and this is may be what will happen tomorrow - we will see. Greens, even though good, really faded in comparison to other top teams. I am not sure what it is - their childishness, choreo - not sure. I am not a fan of Canadians even though I see that they dance - just not my team. Anthony - I am not a big fan of their choreo and I do not buy their performance either. They are also quite a bit mismatched to my eye.

 

[Anyasnake]

Did anyone learn from this mistake though? I don't know because it was complicated by emotional matters, and a coach's coming between two emotionally immature youngsters' romantic relationship. That's what made the entire thing such a difficulty for RusFed to intervene, I suppose.

Not that much really. Same with Yanovskaya/Mozgov who split, but they are actually doing better than expected with their partners. But where they could have a really strong team again, it faded away. I don't even why they split.