David Wilson on Sasha Cohen

Here is the final part of the GS Interview with Ted Flett and Sasha Cohen.
https://youtu.be/bNI6lBUIHqY

David is asked about "poaching skaters", reveals that he quit smoking last year, and is becoming one with social media

Enjoy!

thank you for this interview!

This is my favourite one so far. I like DW's personality better from this interview Ted Flett is a good interviewer and i am strangely attracted to him hehehehehehehe

Thank you for the interview!
Great idea to put the spotlight on a choreographer.

I think one of the 2 skaters mentionned in the end could be Jeremy Abbott.

OMG........I absolutely love listening to David Wilson. He's my definition of a choreographer in every way. The way he's dressed, the choice of words, his facial expressions, everything!! I would love to have been in that room for this interview. I never met Sasha but Stars On Ice came to the Savemart Center here in Fresno and she was on the local news. People have said that she skates like a Russian but, I can tell you first hand that Sasha "Sounds" like a typical California Girl. She said, "like" so many times, I started laughing.

The ice is really greaaaat, and "Like" The cast is really greaaaat, and I'm feeling, "Like" really greaaaat! You get the idea..


Thank you so much posting that video. Bravo..

I'm very happy to have gained new interesting knowledge about some of the best skaters, e.g. that the very physically flexible Sasha Cohen is not so mentally flexible. It's so apt for him to describe her as exquisite and that simplicity suited her, as evidenced by the clips shown. Her beauty on ice is timeless.

I'm also extremely impressed with Little Midori from the old clip. Just wow!

Thanks so much for the interview, it was super!!

Sasha has always been my favorite female skater and to hear the process that she & David went through. I'm glad that Sasha took ownership of the program and the changes that David wanted to make. I was fortunate to see her in competition a couple of times and she just took my breath away.

I loved David's comment about Midori and the program he choreographed for her comeback but she never "cameback."

Also loved his bumble bee scarf, he pulled the look off so well.

Thanks again for the interview!

I think one of the skaters he was talking about was Daisuke Takahashi for "In the Garden of Souls". Fans still give him compliments for that program.

Thanks so much for this thread. My favourite choreographer talking about my all time favourite skater is a rare treat indeed and I will cherish this interview for long time!

I find one of David Wilson's opinions on choreography to be selfish, short-sighted, and bad for the entire sport. To complain that "no self respecting choreographer" should change another person's work is to act as if every choreographer creates a perfect masterpiece every time they try, for a skater whom they may not know enough about to begin with, in the limited amount of time they have working with them. Total rubbish. He himself even said that it takes him 3 seasons of working with a skater until he feels like he can do his best work for them.

The only thing that matters is a skater having the best program for them, wherever the input might come from. It's not feasible to expect that a program created in a couple days is automatically going to be ideal and no changes should be made to it over the course of the season. When someone goes to a choreographer, what you are getting are ideas. There are many ideas out there to use and what it comes down to is shaping those ideas into the best possible final version. In a film you get useful ideas from the writer, the director, the cinematographer, the editor, the actors, the composer, the production and costume designers (and other technical craftspeople), hopefully the producers, and various other people even. It really shouldn't be much different with ice skating programs, although you don't need that many people.

To try and keep the input on choreography limited and restricted is to create an incestual work space that benefits nobody, except for the egos and bank accounts of a few choreographers. The programs would frequently be better, and thus the entire sport more engaging to the audience and thus more lucrative for everyone, if more time and viewpoint was taken to shape them into tailored works of art.

Blades of Passion said:

I find one of David Wilson's opinions on choreography to be selfish, short-sighted, and bad for the entire sport. To complain that "no self respecting choreographer" should change another person's work is to act as if every choreographer creates a perfect masterpiece every time they try, for a skater whom they may not know enough about to begin with, in the limited amount of time they have working with them. Total rubbish. He himself even said that it takes him 3 seasons of working with a skater until he feels like he can do his best work for them.

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I disagree. Most, if not all artists are the same way. For instance, tattoo artists generally refuse to "change" or "add on to" a tattoo that someone else did. My choreographer is the same (modern dance) way. Perhaps you misunderstood what he was trying to say?

i understood it the same as you ... self respecting might be the wrong choice of word perhaps? He simply means that choreographers respect the work of each other... that was actually one of the nicest things he said .

gsk8 said:

I disagree. Most, if not all artists are the same way. For instance, tattoo artists generally refuse to "change" or "add on to" a tattoo that someone else did. My choreographer is the same (modern dance) way. Perhaps you misunderstood what he was trying to say?

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That cut of R&J is the best ever. Sasha is the definitive Juliet.

Definitely not misunderstanding what he was trying to say. I find it especially hypocritical since he did take Sasha's original Romeo+Juliet program and make it better. His defense being "oh, well I re-edited some of the music". It doesn't matter how he wants to frame it, he did in fact go in and change someone else's choreography. The original choreography wasn't entirely scrapped, parts of it were kept. The result being a program that resonated far more and allowed Sasha to have a great Olympic moment.

There's a reason why dramaturgs / script re-writes exist and, as I was saying about film, a variety of artists involved in creating the final product. It should be no different with skating programs. They should evolve/change over the course of a season, if need be, and multiple viewpoints should be involved in that process when needed. The tattoo artist example doesn't really correlate since a tattoo is a permanent object, until someone gets it removed, although actually there's no reason why someone shouldn't be able to add-on to a tattoo or alter it if they want. It's their body. To say otherwise would be some kind of tattoo culture dogma, which surely exists but is hardly incontrovertible.

It's one thing if you are working with a skater constantly throughout a season (although that still doesn't remove the possible benefit of multiple choreographers being involved), but programs generally aren't put together like that throughout the season. Skaters go get choreography in the summer and that's it. They have their program and there isn't a lot of extra thought put into it. Even if they do go back to the choreographer for a touch-up, that choreographer may not understand exactly what the skater is dealing with and have a good enough understanding of how the program is actually working and looking in competition. This is not how it should be, though. Every effort should be made to give the skater the best packaging they can possibly have.

Competitive ice skating is not about the choreographer, it's about the skater and the audience. What the skater does and what the audience ends up seeing is all that matters. Not protecting the ego of choreographers. Our sport needs to be putting the very best programs out there, for every skater, in order to constantly keep itself relevant and build its audience. It shouldn't matter if that means multiple choreographers working on the same program, separately even. Guess how many films end up being exactly the first draft of the script that was written. It's a communal effort to build the best product possible and there is nothing wrong with that.

gsk8 said:

I disagree. Most, if not all artists are the same way. For instance, tattoo artists generally refuse to "change" or "add on to" a tattoo that someone else did. My choreographer is the same (modern dance) way. Perhaps you misunderstood what he was trying to say?

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This is completely true and I think that's why Frank decided to stop coaching Tim Goebel. There are some coaches that need to work a certain way in order to feel comfortable. As a choreographer and coach myself, I can tell you that I had little tolerance for late students and even less for students who missed rehearsal and didn't notify me ahead of time...:hpull: I'm positive that if you went back and interviewed my former students, that 90% of them would tell you what a great time they had.

However, I had one Mother say the following words to everyone in the administrator's office after our Parent, Teacher Conference. "Black Hitler Is Kicking My Daughter Off The Team!"

mrrice said:

This is completely true and I think that's why Frank decided to stop coaching Tim Goebel. There are some coaches that need to work a certain way in order to feel comfortable. As a choreographer and coach myself, I can tell you that I had little tolerance for late students and even less for students who missed rehearsal and didn't notify me ahead of time...:hpull: I'm positive that if you went back interviewed my former students, that 90% of them would tell you what a great time they had.

However, I had one Mother say the following words to everyone in the administrator's office after our Parent, Teacher Conference. "Black Hitler Is Kicking My Daughter Off The Team!"

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Hmm, I think Frank and Tim had deeper issues which Frank is too much of gentleman to ever state. He treated Christopher Bowman like a son and sometimes substance abuse issues arise and you as a coach not only thinking you are a failure, but think your student is squandering whatever he has. Just saying, and not saying. And not showing up for practice or training full out when a competition is RIGHT THERE can be unnerving. Let's not get on an anti-Frank bandwagon, all the facts are not out there. As for choreographers, well, I seem to recall one Christopher Dean choreographing a Bolero program to an American princess, and she watered it all down to a program that looked like ALL her programs after a certain year, and he requested to have his name removed as choreographer. It wasn't his work and it was crappola. In the end, I remember an Olympic gold medalist had the basics to her winning LP watered down too, and the original choreographer had no say in the final product. It happens. Choreography is not binary or unitary. It might involve the input of several people.

Blades of Passion said:

Competitive ice skating is not about the choreographer, it's about the skater and the audience. What the skater does and what the audience ends up seeing is all that matters. Not protecting the ego of choreographers. Our sport needs to be putting the very best programs out there, for every skater, in order to constantly keep itself relevant and build its audience. It shouldn't matter if that means multiple choreographers working on the same program, separately even. Guess how many films end up being exactly the first draft of the script that was written. It's a communal effort to build the best product possible and there is nothing wrong with that.

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I think you're exaggerating it a bit. To have so much critique and outrage for David Wilson's reluctance to re-do other choreographer's programs is not and won't be the downfall of the figure skating. In my opinion, David Wilson's choreography has actually elevated the sport.

mrrice said:

However, I had one Mother say the following words to everyone in the administrator's office after our Parent, Teacher Conference. "Black Hitler Is Kicking My Daughter Off The Team!"

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That poor little girl will be having a lot of issues when she grows up if her mother goes around saying those things.

lyndichee said:

I think you're exaggerating it a bit. To have so much critique and outrage for David Wilson's reluctance to re-do other choreographer's programs is not and won't be the downfall of the figure skating. In my opinion, David Wilson's choreography has actually elevated the sport.



That poor little girl will be having a lot of issues when she grows up if her mother goes around saying those things.

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That, unfortunately, is exactly what happened. She's actually doing well now however, she was pregnant at the time she was missing practice and if her mother had been honest and told me the real situation, I would have had a sympathetic reaction and done my best to help them both.

lyndichee said:

I think you're exaggerating it a bit. To have so much critique and outrage for David Wilson's reluctance to re-do other choreographer's programs is not and won't be the downfall of the figure skating. In my opinion, David Wilson's choreography has actually elevated the sport.

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It's not his own reluctance, but the spread of an entire mantra that states such a thing is "wrong". It hurts the sport greatly. Everyone typically just goes to one (big-name) choreographer and they spit out a program, which is frequently not a great program nor tailored specifically enough to the individual skater, and then the skater does that program all season and thinks nothing more can be done, since in their mind there's nothing more to the choreographic process or the original choreographer would get mad at them if they sought alterations from someone else. David Wilson has done a lot of excellent work but not every program he makes is the best it can be. This is simply because nobody's work ever is and also because the constraints of time and knowledge with regards to working with skaters and tracking their program over the course of a season.

Although this problem is further compounded by the judging itself - the scores handed out for choreography and interpretation from the judges are often not meaningful enough, so skaters don't care as much since they think the only real option is to consistently skate as perfectly as possible in order to get higher PCS.

Both of these problems must be fixed in order for the sport to reach its ideal peak and thus gain the best audience it can and create the most opportunity and fulfillment for all involved.

BoP:

you have a very idealistic vision of what figure skating should be. You see it as art. Evolving art. Hoping that the ultimate rendition of a piece of music by a skater happens...

However, in reality, figure skating is mostly a sport. The goal for the athlete is to have a choreography that will allow them to max out their points potential.

Yes, because there is music and all humans are sensitive to it, we often get performances that carry an emotional resonance. However, in the case of figure skating choreography, I don't think emotional resonance is the ultimate goal. That is where it differs greatly from ballet or other performance art forms.

So in light of that, I think I can see why choreographers would be reluctant to altering greatly a program... they'd prefer changing the music or getting a new piece altogether as a choreography is mostly a map of technical elements and their transitions.... starting to play with it reminds me of when a skater starts changing their jump contents IN the middle of a skate... it's often messy

4everchan said:

However, in reality, figure skating is mostly a sport. The goal for the athlete is to have a choreography that will allow them to max out their points potential.

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Choreography and Interpretation are worth points - even the GOE of technical elements have components of this - but those points aren't being handed out accurately. Therefore....