From: loosemore-sandra@cs.yale.edu
Date: 1995/11/06
Subject: Evening with Champions review

Actually, this was the "Afternoon with Champions" since I went
to the Sunday afternoon show.

First the bad news -- no Stieglets at this performance; they'd had
to leave early in order to compete at their regionals.  Also, Punsalan
& Swallow were listed in the program but didn't show.  Dorothy
Hamill had originally been announced as host, but she wasn't even listed
in the program.  Instead we got Urbanski and Marval, who actually did
a reasonably OK job.

The show opened with a few performances by local skaters.  The most
notable of these was from Charlene von Saher, who turned in a polished
and professional program.  She was wearing a very small costume but
did a very big death drop.

Matt Kessinger was the first of the featured skaters.  He did a
rock'n'roll program.  The most impressive thing about it was the
height he got on his double axels.  The choreography and presentation
were pretty ordinary.

Karen Kwan was next, skating to a mellow instrumental piece in a navy
blue nightgown-type dress.  She seemed to have more speed than what I
remembered from her at Nationals in Providence.

Next up were Ari and Akop, the skating acrobats.  They must have been
a last-minute replacement since they weren't listed in the program.
They skated a break-dancing type of program that got a very good
response from the crowd.

Matthew Hall was next.  He had some neat spins (this is the first time
I've seen a male skater do a Harding spin) and did some good jumps.
But Matthew, let me give you a hint.  That costume makes you look like
you're trying to be spiderman, and we already know that superhero
costumes are a fashion no-no.  :-)

Kate Robinson and Peter Breen skated what I suspect is their new free
dance.  The music was jazzy and she wore a sparkly red dress to his
plain white shirt and black pants.  I didn't really find this program
all that spectacular -- a couple of the lifts, in particular, seemed
to be pretty pointless -- but maybe they will improve it by the time
Nationals come around.

Joanna Ng also seemed kind of flat to me.  She did some nice spirals
and spins but the program as a whole didn't leave much of an impression.

Michael Chack skated next, to some vocal music I didn't recognize.
All of his technical elements were very clean and precise.  He's got
his hair cut really, really short now and is wearing an earring.  The
costume he was wearing, a rather severe black tux-type thing, was also
something of a departure from his previous look.

The Protopopovs were the last to skate in the first act.  They did one
of their typical classical programs, not filled with a lot of spectacular
tricks, but clean and lovely to watch.  Unfortunately, I think this
went unappreciated by a large part of the audience.  Perhaps most of
them are just too young to have a clue about who the Protopopovs are?
So they mostly got just polite applause, which was sad, because they
deserve more recognition for continuing to skate as well as they do
after all of these years.

Anyway, the second act opened with more local skaters, this time
including Debbie Koegel and Michael Sklutovsky.  They did a program to
"Once Upon a Dream" that was classy and well-delivered.  Around this
time I spotted Mark Mitchell in the skaters' entrance area, where he
was coaching one of the younger girls who skated.  I wonder why he
didn't skate in the show himself?  He's done it before.

Shepherd Clark was next up in the second act.  Was this his new long
program?  He skated to "Swan Lake", but wearing his weird blue short
program costume from last year.  He really had a lot of speed but
popped a bunch of jumps, and I think he's still relying too much on
crossovers instead of real connecting elements, particularly in the
first part of the program.  It did include some nice elements like
camel spins in both directions and a series of butterflies, though.

After that came Tiffany Chin, skating the same routine with the
black-and-neon costume that she performed at the recent pro event.
Alas, even with seeing this program in person instead of on TV, it
still doesn't do anything for me.

Michael Weiss also skated a program we've seen on TV recently -- his
"Frankenstein" number, this time sans green face paint and in a more
ordinary costume.  He had a couple minor step-outs on jumps but it
was a solid performance and the audience loved it.

Ina & Dungjen did their "Grease" program.  It seemed like Jason was
getting into his role more and projecting more to the audience than
the last time I saw them do this.  He looks good in his new longer
hairstyle, too.  Kyoko was a joy to watch, as usual.

Next, it was Tonia Kwiatkowski's turn.  She skated to some music I
didn't recognize, in a longish pink dress.  The program included a few
solid jumps -- was that really a triple lutz she did down at the other
end of the rink?  It happened so smoothly that I wasn't sure if I'd
imagined it!

Calla and Rocky skated last, doing all of their usual assortment of
tricks to their usual kind of loud and obnoxious music.  The audience
ate it up and gave them the biggest round of applause of anyone in the
entire show, though.  Well, to give them credit, this time Calla *did*
manage to land both of the throws on one foot.

Finally, it was time for the closing number, which wasn't particularly
memorable.  The skaters just came out in groups and did some spins or
jumps together, except for Michael Chack who got to do a little solo
because of him being the only lefty-jumper in the group, and the
Protopopovs, who I guess got to do a solo because they're getting too
creaky to keep up with the other pairs.

One other comment -- I really wish that they would take the hockey
"glass" down for this show.  My ticket was for a seat at the extreme
end of one of the long sides of the rink, where the vertical posts and
distortion from looking through the plastic at such an acute angle
made it all but impossible to see what was happening at the other
end of the rink.  There were a bunch of empty seats at the short
sides of the rink, though, and I quickly relocated to one of them so
that I could at least see the entire rink.

-Sandra