From: loosemore-sandra@bulldog.cs.yale.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.skating.ice.figure
Subject: Review:  Ice Theatre of NY
Date: 1 Jun 1996 22:08:02 -0400
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway

Friday night I went to see the Ice Theatre of New York performance at
the Chelsea Piers rink in Manhattan.  For those who aren't familiar
with this group, it's basically a dance company on skates.  This was
the first time I've seen them; I've been aware of this group for
several years but always seemed to find out about their shows *after*
they were held instead of before.  I have to thank Jonathan Stine for
letting me know about this one in advance.  We were even able to get a
small group of net.skatefans together for the traditional (?)
pre-event dinner.

Dorothy Hamill was supposed to be the guest performer in this show but
had to pull out because she's injured her knee and her doctor told her
to take some time off.  She did come out and make a little speech,
though, and was very visible in the lobby both before and after the
show.

Some notes on the program:

The show opened with "Concert Waltz", an ensemble featuring pretty much
the entire cast, with simple costumes in pastel colors and music by Gounod.
The piece was broken into segments for different groups of skaters, and
a few of them had small solo bits at the end.

Next, Daniel Weiss skated a solo program with a robot theme in a flashy
silver-sequinned costume.  The music was some upbeat techno stuff, and
the crowd liked it.

Elizaveta Stekolnikova and Dmitri Kazarlyga did a program to the adagio
from "Samson and Delilah".  I am not sure if this is a competitive
program for them or just an exhibition, but it was wonderful -- one of
the highlights of the show, I thought.  The approach was very flowing and
romantic.  Natalia Dubova is credited as the choregrapher.

Dmitri Gromov skated a solo to Gershwin's "I Won't Dance".  I hadn't heard
of this skater before, but it was a very pleasing show-type program, skated
with a lot of speed and including a triple lutz and a few other good jumps.
He used a hat as a prop throughout the program, and perhaps the most
spectacular part was at the very end when he picked up the hat off the ice
while executing a huge butterfly jump.

"Red" was another ensemble piece, skated to the Bachianas Brasilieras
#5 by Villa-Lobos.  (They used a longer cut than what Denise Biellmann
was skating to last season, including the middle section that Denise
left out.)  I wish the program had included some notes about this
piece because I'm not quite sure what it was supposed to be all about.
It began with a female soloist in a long red dress with a flowing
cape, who was joined in a pas de trois by a couple in green, and a
separate group of four women skating in formation.  The choreography
alternated between of rigid, hobbled steps and long flowing edges.  It
was very interesting to watch even though I couldn't figure out what
it was supposed to represent.

For a change of pace, Ari and Akop, the skating acrobats, came out
next, and did one of their typical kinds of programs.  Shiny black
leather pants and black t-shirts, techno music, lots of tricks.

The next piece was certainly the weirdest one of the entire show.  It
was a solo choreographed by Frank Nowosad and performed by James
Schilling to "music" that consisted entirely of bird sounds.  The
skating had a lot of bird poses and things that might have been
flapping or flying movements.  I have to say that the whole thing
reminded me of something that Gary Beacom would do.

The second act opened with another weird one, with music and
choreography by David Dorfman.  It began with a trombonist and
accordion player standing on the ice and playing an introduction, then
the ensemble of skaters came out, and the trombone player joined them,
weaving around on his hockey skates and waving his trombone.  What
this was all supposed to represent, I haven't a clue, but it was
certainly entertaining to watch.

Stekolnikova and Kazarlyga came back out to perform what I suspect is
their tango original dance for the upcoming season, but the piece they
performed was so short that I surmise that it's not finished yet.

Another solo was next, "Cosmic Voyeur" skated by Doug Webster to music
by Tangerine Dream with some fog effects.  His costume reminded me of
the sort of thing that Jor-El wore in the old Superman comic books I
read when I was a kid -- you know, bright blue with pointy things on
the shoulders.  His skating was very fast and included some nice
elements like a layback spin.

The next piece was "Remolino", a pas de trois choreographed by Mimi
Wacholder to music that sounded like it was from the Cirque du Soleil.
Mimi skated with two men (James Schilling and Jonathan Stine) dressed
in weird pastel-colored costumes with helmets and capes.  In fact, the
whole number was a little weird, but I liked it a lot.

Ari and Akop came back out to skate another program, this one "The
Blues Brothers".  More of their usual kind of stuff, lots of hamming
it up, and the audience loved it.

Next, Marina Kulbitskaya and Alexander Esman skated an adagio pairs
number that was choreographed by Christopher Dean.  (The music wasn't
identified in the program; it sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn't
place it.)  The choreography didn't seem to be as idiosynchratic as
Dean's usual stuff, and it included an unusual death spiral kind of
movement at the end where the man supported the lady completely on his
leg.

Daniel Weiss came back with another solo to "One Rock'n'Roll Too Many"
that included some graphic adult humor.  The gimmick was that he was
supposed to be drunk, and he managed even to land a few jumps while
keeping in character.

The final piece in the show was "Reflections", a piece choreographed
by Laura Dean and Richard Kosinski for an ensemble of four men and
four women.  Now, I've seen a couple of pieces of Dean's dance
choreography before, and in watching this skating program I couldn't
quite rid myself of the idea that she didn't really understand how to
make good use of the entire ice surface or the additional freedom of
movement that skaters have.  The choreography was quite minimalistic
in approach, consisting back crossovers circling around the center
of the rink and evolving into various patterns and then back to
crossovers around the middle again.

All in all, I thought the whole show was very interesting and I
enjoyed it a lot more than the Tour of Champions show I went to a
month ago.  Whether or not I really "liked" all of the pieces they
performed here at an emotional level, I definitely do like being
exposed to things that are different and challenging at an
intellectual level.  And it does bother me that, in spite of the big
boom in skating in the past few years, we're mostly just seeing more
and more of the same old thing.  I really wish that the big-name
professional skaters would stop trying to be overpaid amateur skaters
with so much emphasis on competitions, and instead do more of the
kinds of programs that the eligible skaters *can't* do in competition.
So it's great to see a group of skaters who are serious about developing
skating as a form of dance performance.

The new Sky Rink isn't really the best place to hold a skating show --
sitting on bleachers for a couple hours always makes my back ache --
but I do like the more intimate atmosphere of a smaller rink.  I might
also note that the place was completely packed!  They might have been
able to sell enough tickets for two shows, or hold it in a larger
facility.

-Sandra