2019-2020 Programs and Choreographers

Colonel Green said:
Dirty Dancing, An American in Paris, Chicago and The Great Gatsby have all been used in juniors (though the last of those should not be eligible, which is presumably why Shevchenko/Eremenko aborted their plan to use it).

Komatsubara/Koleto are doing Dreamgirls, though of course we haven't seen it yet.
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^^ Thanks. Why is The Great Gatsby ineligible? It had to be on Broadway in some incarnation prior to being a movie? Or, it isn't considered a musical?
 
Calderone & Papetti, Jeongyeon & Sungmin, and Ivanenko & Utkin (the final team of whom I haven't seen yet) are all skating to Chicago. (This after at least 4 Chicagos in the RD from last season).

aftershocks said:
^^ Thanks. Why is The Great Gatsby ineligible? It had to be on Broadway in some incarnation prior to being a movie? Or, it isn't considered a musical?
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There is a musical version of The Great Gatsby. Just not the film soundtrack.
 
Gris said:
At this point I'm not very optimistic since this program can easily become some ... monotonous voiceover from start to finish but if they manage to pull it off it would be incredible.

So, either masterpiece or bust I guess.
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It's way too early for me to have an opinion on the masterpiece or bust question, but I do want to, for posterity, quote this excerpt from Forest Blakk's preternaturally evocative slam poem/song/celebration of the English language, "Swipe Right," just to demonstrate the level of linguistic mastery its creator is capable of:

Swipe right
The curves of all your edges
The shapes of each beautiful angle
Mirroring the perfection of your symmetry, wow
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Aerobicidal said:
It's way too early for me to have an opinion on the masterpiece or bust question, but I do want to, for posterity, quote this excerpt from Forest Blakk's preternaturally evocative slam poem/song/celebration of the English language, "Swipe Right," just to demonstrate the level of linguistic mastery its creator is capable of:
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And Shakespeare wrote fart jokes and filthy puns. So what?

The piece they've chosen is fit for purpose. It has a metronomic quality that gives it enough rhythm to be legal to skate to, and it articulates a theme that they illustrate through movement. Job done. No, it's not going to be to everyone's taste, but what program ever is? If it grates your nerves turn the sound down or go make a cup of tea while they're on, simple as that.
 
Jeschke said:
Anastasia Galustyan:
SP: Je t'aime
FS: Corpse Bride OST
Choreo: Ilya Gurylev

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I approve of these choices. :) She already did Jotem last season and it was actually good. As for Corpse Bride, it's a fantastic soundtrack--I'm surprised more skaters haven't used it before. I have high expectations for the costume and makeup!
 
Orm Irian said:
And Shakespeare wrote fart jokes and filthy puns. So what?

The piece they've chosen is fit for purpose. It has a metronomic quality that gives it enough rhythm to be legal to skate to, and it articulates a theme that they illustrate through movement. Job done. No, it's not going to be to everyone's taste, but what program ever is? If it grates your nerves turn the sound down or go make a cup of tea while they're on, simple as that.
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I would 100 percent approve of a program set to fart jokes and Shakespearean puns.

Forest Blakk's writing is atrocious and I'm going to be making fun of it all season. You're welcome to criticize me for it all season.
 
This poem is so bad I have deleted nine billion drafts of posts about it because they all feel too mean. It is so bad even talking about how bad it is feels mean. It's like criticizing a little kid's drawing on the fridge. I have to say it once though. If they could hire a professional actor or voice-over artist to re-do the reading of it that might make it a little better. Bad poetry can sound good when read well, things work differently out loud than on the page. Other than this, I will try as hard as I can just not to comment on this, I may literally have to ban myself from this board. I wish they could cut it from the program but they've made such a big thing of it, it would be a bit hard on the poet, it's really unfortunate.
 
I don't like the poem at all, it's quite cringey on paper. Yet I don't think it's that dramatically bad as previous posts suggested and I found myself focusing on the dance itself instead of being bothered by the poem when watching.

However, English is not my mother tongue and I'm not as sensitive to the language as native speakers are.

ETA:

www.youtube.com

FIND ME - Forest Blakk

This piece has meant a lot to me. For a while I have been trying to find myself through not only dancing but life itself. My journey in life has brought me t...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

I wonder if their team watched this before...
 
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Aerobicidal said:
I would 100 percent approve of a program set to fart jokes and Shakespearean puns.

Forest Blakk's writing is atrocious and I'm going to be making fun of it all season. You're welcome to criticize me for it all season.
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Perhaps the words are not the fine art I would expect from Papadakis and Cizeron, but I think this selection has the potential to do more GOOD than harm for a different reason.
I looked up more info about him and watched his Facebook live chat about his work, “Swipe Right.” I enjoyed hearing about where his music comes and who he is. Within the chat, it talks about dealing with anxiety and depression. He breaks down several times. He leaves a direct number to call him where he will answer if possible, whenever anyone is having a bad day. Knowing where his heart is (and maybe Papadakis and Cizeron have seen all of this) , I think I can forgive a few trite lyrics if the free dance reaches a few people in need.

“What is swipe right?”
 
Clay said:
Perhaps the words are not the fine art I would expect from Papadakis and Cizeron, but I think this selection has the potential to do more GOOD than harm for a different reason.
I looked up more info about him and watched his Facebook live chat about his work, “Swipe Right.” I enjoyed hearing about where his music comes and who he is. Within the chat, it talks about dealing with anxiety and depression. He breaks down several times. He leaves a direct number to call him where he will answer if possible, whenever anyone is having a bad day. Knowing where his heart is (and maybe Papadakis and Cizeron have seen all of this) , I think I can forgive a few trite lyrics if the free dance reaches a few people in need.

“What is swipe right?”
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I respect this perspective and thanks for the info.

This issue (bad art for a good cause) is really complicated. My personal opinion is that it's possible to respect the motivation and cause but still criticize the art. If someone is publishing a text of any sort, I think that work should be subject to criticism for its style and content. If Paul Verhoven had dedicated Showgirls to charities working for sex workers' unionization and donated any of its profits to the ACLU, I would totally respect that but still mock the movie. However, with Forest Blakk, the work as well as the cause is much more personal so there's a lot more gray area if/when mockery is concerned.

I know others won't think it's okay to be too harsh in judging the text, which I completely respect, and I'm not going to get into an argument about it online because the issue is way too nuanced.

On an unrelated note, I agree with @alchemy void re: Galustyan.
 
alchemy void said:
I approve of these choices. :) She already did Jotem last season and it was actually good. As for Corpse Bride, it's a fantastic soundtrack--I'm surprised more skaters haven't used it before. I have high expectations for the costume and makeup!
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I agree that Corpse Bride is great music. There was an obscure dance team that used it at Canadians one year...Megan Wilson and Garrett Goodman in 2008 (in combination with Thriller...weird but it worked). I can’t think of a ton of other skaters who have used it although a bit of googling tells me Marin Honda did the year she won world juniors. I’ll have to track down that program.
 
Does anybody remember Rod McKuen? He was a popular "poet" in the 60s-70s. The late, great writer Nora Ephron wrote about his "poetry" in an essay entitled "Mush." That's how I feel about Forest Blakk's oeuvre. If you want to use poetry or spoken words in skating, may I suggest Emily Dickinson, Pushkin, Paul Verlaine, and dozens more. I also agree with the comment that a professional actor/actress would serve the piece better (doesn't have to be an established "star").

(To be fair to Rod, I did like the theme song he wrote for the film "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.")
 
believed said:
Lorraine McNamara/Quinn Carpenter (USA)

RD: ‘It Was a Good Time" and "Maybe This Time" by Liza Minelli
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Very belatedly, as I was in the process of updating their Wikipedia entries (which nobody had updated the bodies of the text for since 2017), but "It Was a Good Time" is from Liza's 1972 concert film Liza with a Z. How does that count as a musical?
 
Colonel Green said:
Very belatedly, as I was in the process of updating their Wikipedia entries (which nobody had updated the bodies of the text for since 2017), but "It Was a Good Time" is from Liza's 1972 concert film Liza with a Z. How does that count as a musical?
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Because it's LIZA!!!! (and how awfully funny that the poster that you quoted misspelled Liza's last name - the spelling and frequent misspelling of which the song "Liza with a Z" actually addresses).
 
Colonel Green said:
Very belatedly, as I was in the process of updating their Wikipedia entries (which nobody had updated the bodies of the text for since 2017), but "It Was a Good Time" is from Liza's 1972 concert film Liza with a Z. How does that count as a musical?
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I don't know, but there's a team that's using a song from the movie "The Mask" and last I checked that wasn't a musical. There are some loosey-goosey interpretations happening.
 
Colonel Green said:
Very belatedly, as I was in the process of updating their Wikipedia entries (which nobody had updated the bodies of the text for since 2017), but "It Was a Good Time" is from Liza's 1972 concert film Liza with a Z. How does that count as a musical?
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Search me. Google tells me that it originally comes from a film called Ryan's Daughter, but the film isn't a musical either.
 
Once the rules for juniors were relaxed such that the Foxtrot can be skated to anything "ballroom," seniors probably figured despite such an exception not being made for them, it was clear the ISU would take literally anything whose cousin's next-door neighbor's sister was kind of maybe a musical.
 
Is the music at the start of Shoma's FS an orchestral version of "Dancing on My Own" arranged just for him? I tried Shazaaming it to see if anything comes up and it doesn't. I'm kind of in love with that piece of music!
 
TanithandBenFan said:
The first part of Shoma's program is instrumental and not part of the regular Calum Scott cover that Alex used. That's the piece I'd love to identify. It sounds like an orchestral version of the song.
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Oh, I misread, sorry.

It could be custom, though there are probably a million orchestral versions of pop songs out there for people who are looking to find.
 
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