The Dance Hall, Part 4: To Helsinki & Back -- Seeking Rhumba Magic ...

levineismine said:
Thanks @Dobre for the detailed breakdown of challenger assignments!
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Meanwhile the young & upcoming teams AKA the teams composed of athletes that moved up from juniors this quadrennium:
(This list is not exhaustive).

-Nazarova & Nikitin, Loboda & Drozd, and Pogrebinsky & Benoit at Lombardia. (That's a battle worth watching. A medal is possible here, but you're going to have to fight for it with a lot of other teams).

-The Parsons, Abachkina & Thauron, Evdokimova & Bazin, Popova & Mozgov, and Yanovskaya & Lukacs at Nepela. (This is a pretty weak/young field after Bobrova & Soloviev. One or two of these young teams is likely to medal).

-McNamara & Carpenter, Lauriault & Le Gac, and Kuzmichova & Sinicyn at the Autumn Classic. (This event is a very deep field at the top with all three top Canadian teams & the Danes signed up).

-Hawayek & Baker, Biechler & Dodge, and Soucisse & Firus at the U.S. Classic.
(H&B have more senior experience together as a team than most of the field here. They've been head-to-head with the Danes the last two seasons on the CS series, and here we go again).

-Yanovskaya & Lukacs and Sales & Wamsteeker at Nebelhorn.

Teams not competing yet but listed: Muller & Dieck are on the sub list for Nebelhorn.


Hmm. Where are Kaliszek & Spodyriev? They can't be waiting for Warsaw because they are scheduled for the France GP at the same time. Anyway, add K&S to my earlier list of teams not yet listed for a Challenger event.
 
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Is it wrong that I'm secretly hoping for Kaliszek & Spodyriev to keep the Dirty Dancing FD for the Olympics? They'd gain so many new fans, they could potentially go viral just for the choreography that matches up with the movie... :shuffle: an Olympic audience is easy to please in that sense. If you make them feel smart, like recognizing choreography from the movie Dirty Dancing, they'll pay more attention to you. :D
 
Karpenko said:
Is it wrong that I'm secretly hoping for Kaliszek & Spodyriev to keep the Dirty Dancing FD for the Olympics?
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Yes, it is wrong;). I enjoyed it very much, but they skated it as well as they could skate it. Earned the best score they could with it. And we are not in the business of encouraging repeat programs here in the ice dance thread. We are in the business of finding teams that can skate and sell everything.

It'll be mighty tough to top that one, I agree. But the attempt must be made.

I hope.

Happily, we have The Bodyguard and Pirates of the Caribbean this season among the dance FDs. I think we can give Kaliszek & Spodyriev and their team the credit for that.
 
Dobre said:
Hmm. Where are Kaliszek & Spodyriev? They can't be waiting for Warsaw because they are scheduled for the France GP at the same time. Anyway, add K&S to my earlier list of teams not yet listed for a Challenger event.
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I believe he had to have a surgery at the beginning of the off-season so they might be behind and may not do a challenger this year. They seem like they're in training though, they spent about a month training with Igor, so hopefully that means preparations are going well.
 
chameleonster said:
I believe he had to have a surgery at the beginning of the off-season so they might be behind and may not do a challenger this year. They seem like they're in training though, they spent about a month training with Igor, so hopefully that means preparations are going well.
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Thank you for the update. I was afraid something might have happened when I realized they weren't on any lists. They are the kind of team that could benefit from going up against all these other young teams early, while many of those teams are just getting their feet wet. And Kaliszek & Spodiriev used their world standing points this season. Hope he has healed well. That's far more important.

Also, a few more updates for anyone who hasn't seen these just yesterday:

Apparently Evdokimova & Bazin are off the list for Nepela. (Wonder what this means regarding Rostelecom. I was thinking maybe Nepela was meant to be a skate off with Popova & Mozgov for that TBA spot). Hope both teams will be at Russian test skates.

And--sigh--Hurtado & Khaliavin are off the list for Lombardia.
 
Dobre said:
Apparently Evdokimova & Bazin are off the list for Nepela. (Wonder what this means regarding Rostelecom. I was thinking maybe Nepela was meant to be a skate off with Popova & Mozgov for that TBA spot). Hope both teams will be at Russian test skates.

And--sigh--Hurtado & Khaliavin are off the list for Lombardia.
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What? :(:confused:
 
Dobre said:
Happily, we have The Bodyguard and Pirates of the Caribbean this season among the dance FDs. I think we can give Kaliszek & Spodyriev and their team the credit for that.
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I haven't followed very closely for couple of months so who are the teams skating to those 2 soundtracks ? Thanks in advance.
 
nimi said:
Definitely! Last season there were way too many soft&lyrical programs IMO. Diversity is good!
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Boy, I don't know, I'm a sucker for soft, lyrical programs. :inavoid: Although, it is good to shake things up occasionally - and it might help eliminate redundant, predictable outcomes. Of course, holding one's breath is (probably) not recommended.
 
chameleonster said:
Nazarova/Nikitin are skating to Pirates of the Caribbean and Mueller/Dieck are skating to The Bodyguard.
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Is it bad that I want Mueller/Dieck to be the number 1 German team so that they can be at the Olympics? I like their Bodyguard FD and I think it will do very well with an Olympic audience :eek: I LOVE Nazarova/Nikitin's FD!!!!! Great potential for this program!!!
 
Oh no! Just watched Carreira and Ponomarenko's first JGP performance of the season and an unexpected fall from Christina happened after their first set of twizzles...:fragile: They earned a short dance score of 57.82 :slinkaway Not so devastating... Hope they bounce back at the free. They have a lovely FD this season!
 
AquaLady said:
Oh no! Just watched Carreira and Ponomarenko's first JGP performance of the season and an unexpected fall from Christina happened after their first set of twizzles...:fragile: They earned a short dance score of 57.82 :slinkaway Not so devastating... Hope they bounce back at the free. They have a lovely FD this season!
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Just before the fall I was thinking how weak she is compared with him, then the fall :slinkaway.
And she is pretty, the costume does not do her any favors.
 
AquaLady said:
Oh no! Just watched Carreira and Ponomarenko's first JGP performance of the season and an unexpected fall from Christina happened after their first set of twizzles...:fragile: They earned a short dance score of 57.82 :slinkaway Not so devastating... Hope they bounce back at the free. They have a lovely FD this season!
Click to expand...
Even with such a costly error they still won the SD, so hopefully that gives them the confidence they need to skate a great FD. I thought they skated very well after the mistake which is a good sign for them.
 
So did someone say, in another thread, that teams are not required to skate the rhumba pattern to an actual rhumba rhythm?? If this is true, I gotta say I am :confused:. What is even the point of skating the pattern if you're not doing it to the right rhythm?!?
 
chameleonster said:
Even with such a costly error they still won the SD, so hopefully that gives them the confidence they need to skate a great FD. I thought they skated very well after the mistake which is a good sign for them.
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They are still very young. But they have a maturity about them. They had good recovery even after that fall. Hopefully, they can work most of the costly errors out of their system by the time they hit the senior circuit. It is better to build that experience now.
 
clairecloutier said:
So did someone say, in another thread, that teams are not required to skate the rhumba pattern to an actual rhumba rhythm?? If this is true, I gotta say I am :confused:. What is even the point of skating the pattern if you're not doing it to the right rhythm?!?
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well, the pattern only needed a name and they decided name it Rhumba, it has zero feeling of rhumba.
 
chameleonster said:
Even with such a costly error they still won the SD, so hopefully that gives them the confidence they need to skate a great FD. I thought they skated very well after the mistake which is a good sign for them.
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I agree. I thought they did very well throughout the program except the fall, of course. I'm not the biggest fan of her dress for this SD... Not a fan of the pink ponytail holder either... But this team has really great potential and I hope they deliver for the rest of the season.
 
clairecloutier said:
So did someone say, in another thread, that teams are not required to skate the rhumba pattern to an actual rhumba rhythm?? If this is true, I gotta say I am :confused:. What is even the point of skating the pattern if you're not doing it to the right rhythm?!?
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LOL. It does seem odd, but yup, here it is:

Communication No. 2076

3. REQUIREMENTS FOR SHORT DANCE SEASON 2017/18


3.1. Rhythms

Rule 709, paragraph 1.a) provides that rhythm(s) and/or theme(s) are selected by the Ice Dance Technical Committee annually for the season. For the season 2017/18, the following Rhythms were selected.

Junior and Senior: Any number of the following Latin American Rhythms:

Cha Cha, Rhumba, Samba, Mambo, Meringue, Salsa, Bachata and any closely related Latin American Rhythms

Senior:

The Pattern Dance Element shall be skated to any of the Latin American Rhythms and must be in the style of the chosen rhythm, with the range of temp: 172 – 180 beats per minute. The Tempo of the music throughout the Pattern Dance Element must be constant.
 
I have a feeling that maybe the powers that be were so bored with the way almost every team in 2011-2012 put in a slow rhumba piece in-between two fast pieces. I get tired of fast samba/cha-cha/etc.-slow rhumba ballad-fast samba/cha-cha/etc. formula too. Of course, it's more the fault of requiring different tempos and the way they cut up the rhumba that season as well.
 
When I was watching SDs from the Dance Chicago event, I just had this feeling like the rhumba sections seemed somehow disconnected from the music or something, I think this partly explains why. I also really hate that only 1 pattern of the rhumba is required. It's a short pattern anyhow, so to have it only occur once, it's just not enough IMO for it to have any character at all.

The longer the SD format goes on, the less I am liking it. Either get serious about the pattern portion of the dance, or just drop it IMO.
 
I wish the ISU would just ban the rhumba once and for all and put us out of our misery. It is so contrived and lacks any of the appealing characteristics of rhumba when danced on the floor. (Can we update this emoji to say Ban the Rhumba?):soapbox:
 
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