From: loosemore-sandra
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 10:05:22 -0400 (EDT)
To: skatefans-l@UDel.Edu,
        rec.sport.skating.ice.figure-news@babyblue.cs.YALE.EDU
Subject: Review:  Paul Wylie skates programs by Lar Lubovitch
Sender: owner-skatefans-l@UDel.Edu

Well, it's the first official skating event of the season for me....  a
trip to New York to see Paul Wylie unveil his two new programs
choreographed by Lar Lubovitch.  This was a short (< 1 hour) exhibition
at the Chelsea Piers rink complex, presented by the Lar Lubovitch Dance
Company.  It featured a few other skaters and was hosted by JoJo
Starbuck.

The show opened with Jessica Mills skating her competitive short program
for this year, the one to the "Addams Family" music that I've seen her
doing in practice at Simsbury.  She played it very safe here, doing
double jumps and a single axel.  Rather than wearing another one of
Oksana Baiul's castoffs, she was wearing a dress that was more in the
Nancy Kerrigan style, black velvet with the sheer black net around the
top and sleeves.

Dmitri Gromov then skated "I Won't Dance".  This is the program with the
hat that I'd seen him perform at the Ice Theatre of NY show last spring.

Yuka Sato performed what I believe is a new program, to a piece of music
called "Angel Standing By".  It was quite mellow and slow.  The program
was choreographed by Lea Ann Miller, and it included one rather neat
section where Yuka did a series of waltz jumps into double threes --
hey! that's something I could probably do myself!  :-) She was wearing
an aqua and white dress that looked like it may have been designed by
Toller Cranston, BTW.

Next up was Paul Wylie showing off the first of his two new programs.
He prefaced it with a few remarks about what it was like to work with
Lar Lubovitch, saying that it wasn't a case of the choreographer just
imposing his own style on him, but that the process really got his own
creative juices flowing.  I hope Paul is going to follow through on his
promise to write about this on his web page, too.

The program was to "Touch Me" by the Doors.  Some of you with long
memories may remember that last spring, when we were having a
discussion about what Paul ought to do to get out of his stylistic rut,
I suggested that I'd really like to see him start using some edge jumps
as connecting elements, and develop some new spin positions and some
"edgier" footwork.  Well, three out of three for this program!  Maybe
Paul is lurking here after all.  :-)  The spin variations were
especially dazzling; he even did a layback spin.  There were a few
familiar elements in the program too -- notably, the lutz and cat leap.
All in all, I was very impressed and pleased with this new direction
he's taken in his skating, and I think he also deserves a lot of credit
for making the effort to add such a variety of new technical skills to
his repertoire.  The actual performance was OK; no glaring mistakes,
but it's a new program and there were a few spots where he seemed a
little hesitant.  I'm sure he'll pick up a little more speed in the
footwork (etc) as the program becomes more familiar to him.

The next skaters were Marina Koulbitskaya and Alexander Esman, the
adagio pair from the Ice Theatre of NY, performing the "Reprise d'Amour"
program that I'd previously seen them do in the show last spring.  This
program was choreographed by Christopher Dean but doesn't really seem to
bear a strong stamp of his normal style.

Jessica Mills came back to skate to "Some Enchanted Evening", a more
lyrical kind of piece than she normally does.  This time she added a
little more technical content, landing both a double axel and triple
toe.  The program also included an impressive ina bauer that covered the
whole ice surface.  For this one she was wearing a pretty traditional
fuschia dress with a lot of sequins on the front.

Yuka Sato's second number was "So Much Fun", a Janet Jackson song.  This
one was also choreographed by Lea Ann Miller but it struck me as being
pretty lightweight overall.  Yuka had the only fall of the show, on a
double axel.  This program included more of her trademark fast footwork
than the other one she did.

Finally, Paul came out to do his second program, the Adagio from the
Bach D minor oboe concerto.  I had a harder time getting a handle on
this program.  I think it has some "meat" to it, but it's quite abstract
and I found it hard to take in the choreography and its relation to the
music on a first viewing.  The program featured still more spin
variations, a lot of spirals and spread eagles, and more obviously
deliberate and balletic use of the arms than we're used to seeing from
Paul.  I'd like to see this program again so that I can appreciate it
more fully.  It went over very well in front of this artsy crowd, but I
worry that something like this might go completely over the heads of a
more typical ice-show audience.  Still, it's good to see him taking a
risk on it instead of sticking strictly with more commercial,
mass-appeal pieces.  So, it's two thumbs up for Paul.

Incidentally, Paul skated both programs wearing the "Canadian men's
uniform" of a plain black T-shirt and pants.  No, there was not any
writing on the shirt!

A couple other notes....

I managed to get a "sneak preview" of Paul's programs, entirely by
accident.  I arrived a little early and after I bought my ticket I
wandered over into the other rink to see if there was anything
interesting happening, and there was Paul practicing on a session with a
bunch of adult skaters.  I think he already knows my reaction to his new
programs, as I caught his eye as he was coming off the ice there.  :-)
The adult skaters were interesting to watch, too.  Why is it that other
adults seem to be able to do things in slow motion?  It looks so much
easier that way!  Me, I have this tendency to carry so much speed and
momentum into my spins and jumps that I sometimes have trouble
controlling them, and it's really hard for me to adjust to do things
more cautiously.

There wasn't any organized net.folks get-together at this event, but I
found NotDeby and her mom in the lobby before the show and we also
briefly met up with a few other netters afterwards.  For those of you
who are familiar with the other activities :-) I usually combine with my
out-of-town trips, this time my haul was 6 books and 5 CDs.  This is
actually somewhat relevant to skating since one of the CDs I found is
the Stanley Myers saxophone concerto that Alice Sue Claeys used in her
long program last year.  It's a pretty cool piece and whoever picked
this out for her deserves some credit for digging it up.  (BTW, I highly
recommend the Academy used CD shop on 18th between 5th and 6th, for
those of you who are classical music collectors.  Since finding this
place, I don't even bother with Tower Records any more.)

-Sandra