Sunday, September 3, 2017

Tension in Paradise

Belated remarks:

Papadakis & Cizeron haven't confirmed their music, but this interview in May* - written by someone in the style of a mythologizing syncophant - had lots of pre-emptive sour grapes:

Gabriella: Yeah, we like to skate very fast, sometimes not so much into the details, but more…)

Yeah, I feel you Gabriella. And actually, many of your fans believe ice dance should not be defined and quantified. I think a divinity is meant to descend and anoint Papadakis Cizeron with gold upon the conclusion of their free skate, a la Bernie Sanders' bird.

Both P&C and some of their fans were dragged mercilessly on the interview thread, deservedly, so that's some sort of progress. Maybe some day a plurality of fans on skating forums will decide that real skating skills and rhythm should determine a competition's outcome, versus program composition / music selection, and I'll faint dead away.

Gabriella: I’m not a big fan of Latin for skating. I love Latin dances, I love watching Latin dances, on the floor. But on the ice… I think it’s such a different dynamic in the body that cannot really be translated on the ice, so it’s always gonna look kind of… cheap…

Guillaume: Cliché…

Understood. They can't do it, so it's not worth doing. More ice dancers than this blog can name check have ably translated Latin dance to the ice.

Gabriella: Cheap and cliché, Latin dances on the ice. Plus, there are no much possible different choices for themes and musics. Latin music always kind of sounds the same for me, with the same kind of instruments, and rhythms and… Not like this season – you could’ve had the 20ties, the 30ties, the 40ties, the 60ties, rock ’n’ roll, hip-hop, there was so many difference choices you could have! Latin music? Iiiih, not so many! [she makes a squeaking sound, and then starts laughing]. So it’s hard to be original on these things.

That's a whole lot of ignorance in one paragraph.

Guillaume: The thing about the free dance is that you get to really ice dance, and not dance on the ice. You know what I mean? And the short dance is more about dancing on the ice. All those ballroom positions don’t really fit to the ice, to the material that we have. I think it’s always gonna be a struggle, because we are ice dancers, we’re not ballroom dancers.

And for me the short dance kind of feels like Dancing with the stars. You pick skaters, and you try to make them ballroom dancers, but it’s never gonna… Like if you wanna see Latin dance, go watch a ballroom… ball, you know? [laughing] So I think it always kind of looks cheap.

And that's a whole lot of mumbo jumbo bullshit. That's freedom defined as liberation from any sort of technical standard, when anyone with a clue understands technique facilitates freedom. What does he think his particular skating discipline is about if not translating dance to the ice? Well, we all know. Skating whatever the fuck, however the fuck. He's absurd.

Anyway, it was the first time I have seen fans suggesting that P&C are full of themselves. In some respects, why shouldn't they be. They know it's not what their blades are doing that gets them on the podium, so they must have decided it's legit mystical, which is perfectly ok for a sanctioned Olympic sport.

There's a lot in the article about how movement in the ranks is more possible now, without ever mentioning the superior skating skills upon which rapid upward movement is meant to be based. It's all a big mystery, per P&C and the interviewer. The interviewer attempts to say they are admired by other skaters, but P&C mostly report how they've received messages from other skaters saying something like, "Shit, if you two can be world champions without anything in your skating or previous history suggesting it, it gives me and my partner hope! Maybe we, too, can be random but fortunate pawns in a double (Olympic) cycle, multiple-Fed-engineered, quid pro quo!"

Other stuff:

Remember this? Kind of a twist lift
at the end of Virtue & Moir's Olympic OD.
20 
minutes before performing the OD 
at Worlds 2010, the vaporous figure 
skating grapevine somehow conveyed 
that this same maneuver might be illegal 
to perform at Worlds. Due to to it being 
possibly a kind of twist lift.
I remember Scott complaining about how he and Tessa try to push the envelope, but get pushback. I think he should have complained instead that he's in a recognized ISU discipline, yet a maneuver they executed at the Olympics mysteriously became possibly illegal for Worlds, but, you know, up to you. That's not how any legit sport functions.

Here it is, back. 
Say nothing else about Virtue and Moir, they like the long game. 
Astrologically speaking, they may be Taurus (Tessa)
and Virgo (Scott), but as a team it's pure Scorpio.


Iliushechina Moscovitch - quad sal at the Cricket Club.
Kirsten Moore-Towers is gnashing her teeth.
Moore-Towers wants to do a quad "yesterday." Maybe the above video was this team's only decent attempt in many tries, who knows, but it's a much better quality throw than Duhamel Radford's. They don't stop skating for half the rink before launch, it's an actual throw, not an assisted jump, and, while Lubov lands with a deep knee bend, it's not a crouch. Her carriage is open, and there's run of blade on her landing. Dylan's form at take-off is a mess - off the ice, lurching forward, and a mule kick, but the judges never seem to care what the guy does. Michael Marinaro certainly isn't going to show him up.

Even if Iliushechkina blows a jump, it didn't stop Sui Han from becoming world champions last season. Often as not, pairs results are determined by which error-strewn performance manages to grind out the most points.

Finally, Bryce Davison got married in June, an event I was skeptical would ever take place. Every photo I'd seen of the happy couple seemed awkward, IMO, and lacking conviction. There was a reserve, a stiffness. Then I read that his dearly beloved was a former skater, and I found this:

Michelle Moore prior to taking the ice for Canada in 2009.
That's one of the cutest things ever, and explains a lot.

BTW, her skating skills are excellent. Just not a strong jumper. Congratulations Bryce Davison.

P.S. Excerpt from Weaver & Poje's Beverly Smith interview:

They were gleeful when the International Skating Union announced that the rhythm in the short dance for Olympic season would be Latin. “We LOVE Latin,” Weaver said. “We love the dancing in the clubs. We loved our Latin program from 2011 to 2012. It’s one of our favourite genres and styles. So without repeating ourselves, we wanted to find a way to still be exciting and entertaining.”

*Excerpted on Goldenskate.com

7 comments:

  1. I nearly choked when I read the P&C interview because it sounded like they were well on their way to making excuses for their sorry attempt at the Latin SD. If their hot mess of an SD from last season is an indication, they will have a miserable time interpreting anything that isn't their normal "lyrical" style. I'm not sure P&C are capable of the quick, sharp footwork necessary to make Latin music work. I will be pleasantly surprised if they can out-Latin V&M.

    On a side note, I love the music selection from V&M for the SD. I was worried we would be subjected to anything remotely close to Despacito. Based on the "leaked" clips from the HPC, they make the rhumba section look easy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is no way they can out-Latin VM because they lack the technical competence. I'm positive they're not capable of the quick, sharp footwork necessary to make any set pattern work, or any specific style, period.

    Per their interview, VM are taking the opposite tack, talking about using edges (a la Carmen, one hopes) in their Latin program, versus knee up stylings in between.

    I have no idea why a sort of amorphous free-styling ballet-ish lyrical mish mash is often considered the ne plus ultra of art in ice dance, but it's not only often considered art in ice dance, it's described as innovative, when ice dancers have been doing this ever since the 1980s when Torvill and Dean went contemporary instead of ballroom. Of course T&D used their blades and deep knees, not wavy upper bodies, but their imitators tended to do the latter.

    I also love the music selectrion for the SD, and nobody hates the Eagles more than I do. I hate Hotel California only slightly less than I hate Lyin Eyes. I like "Desperado" - but I like anyone singing Desperado, and I also like Spirit in the Sky. That's it.

    They certainly do make the rhumba section look easy. They must be able to rumba in their sleep at this point. Their rumba as juniors was spectacular already way back when.

    ReplyDelete
  3. OC, I missed if you addressed these in the past, but did you see these other articles from spring that talk about P/C and compulsory patterns and footwork?

    http://www.insideskating.net/2017/03/27/interviews/marie-france-dubreuil-gabriella-and-guillaume-have-the-talent-but-they-also-have-the-innocence

    Marie-France: No, but I think the short dance is very restrictive pattern-wise, and Gaby and Guillaume have so much flow and speed, that to restrict them in space and everything it’s always been tricky – because they like to expand and be very fluid. And all of this, and what’s required in a short dance to be contained between the midline and these lines, and all that pattern-thing, is not allowing them right now to grow to their full potential.

    http://www.absoluteskating.com/index.php?cat=interviews&id=2017cizeron

    Guillaume: Sometimes our skating technique, our deep edges can be a disadvantage. It can be easier to do clean turns with shallower edges, skating stiffer. We have this flow naturally, but we have to focus on sometimes toning down our knee action in order to perform what is expected from us technically during the step sequences.

    I would guffaw if these excuses weren't going to push them along to at least an Olympic silver.

    Btw, the Marie-France article has a very illuminating passage about their new teams from the last few years -- that the coaches can tell which ones are willing to "fully submerge into what needs to be done" and "open their vision and dive into the process" and implies that at least one couple was not. (I don't think I blame that couple.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't blame that couple either. It's all bullshit anyway. The success of that coaching center is all down to deal making, and I don't believe for a single second that DL are actually VM's coaches in any way but nominally. VM know tons more than DL know on DL's best day.

    I can't with Guillaume's up is down, left is right gobbledygook.

    A lot of what they've been saying doesn't appear to have been received well on the skating forums. Maybe it will backfire at the Olympics and the Shibs can get the silver they deserve. P&C are unloading all these sour grapes, and meantime VM are shoving some of their their previous audacious maneuvers into their programs, so maybe it's all a set up. The best part about VM adding the quasi throw and the quasi twist is these moves are conspicuous and flashy. They help justify a win. There's a lot of "effective" maneuvers that aren't very difficult (see D/W's backback "lift"), but convince the audience something extraordinary has just been executed. In the past the ISU had stripped VM's programs of those moves by the time the Olympics or Worlds came around, even when they were permitted to win. (And VM's "wow" moves were always actually difficult.) Now they're adding some of them back in, which is perhaps, their insurance, since reporters and fans don't know anything about skating and tend to think flashier is better.

    It's absolutely disgusting that P&C are pushing the memo that technique actually harms the best skaters. They're excuse making is getting more and more gish gallopy. Unbelievable crap. I almost prefer the D/W approach, which is to have terrible technique but say it's excellent. That's better than pretending that technical requirements are somehow unfair to the best skaters.

    oc

    ReplyDelete
  5. P.S. - I am really missing Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam. I wish they'd stuck it out for one more Olympic cycle, but I don't blame them for getting out.

    oc

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me too. :( I don't miss the Gadbois version of them - the way they seemed to lose all the confidence the DSC built up, the lyrical free dances that didn't showcase them properly - but they brought something unique to the scene along with the excellent properly trained basics. A team that I had loved anyway, but watching old videos now, their strengths stand out much more.

      Delete
  6. We will see VM programs this week! Autumn classic how exciting!!

    ReplyDelete