I Miss the Artistic Programs

What ever happened to the really artistic programs the ladies used to skate? Kurt says it's now called a component mark. I don't know, I miss the beautiful programs of Karen Magnussen, Janet Lynn, Dorothy Hamill and the list goes on. Sure, these ladies only did double jumps, but they connected to the music and made you feel something. They were magical as they floated across the ice weaving a spell. It seems to be now more about the jumps and not much about the connecting steps. I loved watching Karen Magnussen do an Ina Bauer into a double Axel jump and her famous spiral went on forever around the rink as she changed an edge. Just like I don't really care about the quad the men are doing, I'd rather watch an artistic skater any day - male or female. Give me the "good old days" watching skaters like Karen Magnussen and Toller Cranston!

Entirely a matter of opinion. See, for me the current crop of ladies are artistic enough and mesmerizing to watch - Miyahara, Kostner, Medvedeva who I'm starting to warm up to, Wagner etc. Yes, there are more difficult jumps these days which affects choreo and interpretation, but it's hardly fair to diss all current skaters' programs as 'not real art'. With PCS being more or less subjective, I fully support a balance between the artistic and the technical side.
On an unrelated note, I'm curious if you've got any ladies favorites from outside the US?

It's figure jumping now. Alina won the competition through her jumping and her competitive will. I think she was the most determined competitor and deserved to win as far as these things go. But she's not a complete skater.

The whole problem is the PCS boost for consistency and impressive tech, especially in the ladies. If PCS were kept more down to earth, perhaps more skaters would emphasise on creating more artistic programs in an effort to gain more points, especially the ones that cannot successfully backload.

I think those of us who like artistic programs are relegated to watching Youtube. To me there are flashes of artistry, but most of the programs look the same. There are a few exceptions.

I'm gonna be honest now:

I prefer figure skating today. As someone who only got into it very recently - watching back on old programs what I see is A. potentially boring and b. as it is less athletically challenging - if skating hadn't developed further it would be very hard to justify its existence as a sport. Sports have to develop from athletes perspective. Jumps/spins ect. are measurable and possible to judge - so of course a focus shifted on that.
Look through the competition threads here: Everyone has a different opinion on who they find artistically interesting or good. Its subjective, which - at least technically speaking - a sport shouldn't be. Otherwise its Art - and not a sport.

somelikeitpink said:

if skating hadn't developed further it would be very hard to justify its existence as a sport

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Figure skating isn't a sport. It's half art, half sport. Technical boundaries will always be pushed. So must artistry. They should go together for the complete package. If you want to watch people get judged on only jumps and flips, check out gymnastics or snowboarding.

Proxy said:

Figure skating isn't a sport. It's half art, half sport. Technical boundaries will always be pushed. So must artistry. They should go together for the complete package. If you want to watch people get judged on only jumps and flips, check out gymnastics or snowboarding.

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I didn't say that thats what I wanted. But just look online at comments from people who don't know anything about Figure Skating, wondering how it qualifies as a sport that is allowed at the olympics.

I'm coming from a ballet background, of course I want to see artistry. And I agree it should develop along side. But thats the point - ranking Artistry over the athletic aspect will also not work. And at the end of the day, for the wider public there needs to be something that explains why figure skating can be considered a sport that even goes to the olympics, and for example dancing isn't.

I'm just amazed that all these years, the judges in a given event, despite each having their own national bias, have their marks so nicely lined up for a given program component/GOE of a given skater with such small variance across the board. For example, I'm not sure if Zagitova's PCS is warranted or not, but with skating fans on this forum having disagreeing opinions on how her PCS should be, I would imagine the PCS given out by the board of judges for her would also display more variance. But somehow all judges across the board think alike in an "oh what an amazing coincidence" way.

Proxy said:

Figure skating isn't a sport. It's half art, half sport. Technical boundaries will always be pushed. So must artistry. They should go together for the complete package. If you want to watch people get judged on only jumps and flips, check out gymnastics or snowboarding.

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Oxford's definition of a sport:

An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

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Definitions vary, but they pretty much all mention 1. competition and 2. physical skill or effort. Skating certainly seems to fit the bill to me.

I think it's more than half sport. After all, a skater can get much farther with technical skills and little sense of artistry than vice-versa.

I also don't agree with or like the notion that having artistic, performative or subjective aspects makes something not a sport. I hear this all the time but haven't heard a good explanation why this should be so. People say the same thing about gymnastics because it's got a bit of performance to it, also, although not as much as skating. It's not like a balance; adding something else to a sport doesn't diminish everything that makes it a sport. It still takes just as much physical skill and effort as sports without that component.

I miss it too. What an absolute shame the ladies has become

Proxy said:

Figure skating isn't a sport. It's half art, half sport. Technical boundaries will always be pushed. So must artistry. They should go together for the complete package. If you want to watch people get judged on only jumps and flips, check out gymnastics or snowboarding.

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This is kind of a pointless statement IMO. You're totally opening the door for someone to use your exact same argument against you and tell you to go watch ballet? And let’s be real here...TR and SS probably determine over half of all PCS scores so I’d say the sport is 4/5 athletics 1/5 impression. I’d probably argue to lower the impression even further and go for performance based PCS if I could because that 1/5 is the root of all evil in this sport. Well that and the people who spam negative things all over the internet about it.

I started watching in the Sasha Cohen era which isn’t that long ago but I vastly prefer today’s technical standards and think we still have plenty of budding artists. The problem seems to be that the most widely accepted skaters who have strong components have serious technical flaws so they can’t put themselves in a position to win all the big events. I’m not really bothered by this myself either. Artistic impression should really just break the ties of skaters who have similar technical content and have put themselves in contention and only in rare cases elevate a skater above a more technically sound athlete. It should be the icing on the cake at an athletic competition like the Olympics.

Now ice shows .....that’s a different story and when people pay money to see a performance versus an athletic competition with judges and scores we can really get into the 50/50 debate. I wonder if we made the gala into an Artistic completion for medals with no rules if people would attend it more. It would also be interesting to find the resources to send the winners of the gala events on mini tours and see how those sales went.

By far the best ladies event for me was JGPF! Pick any skater and watch the bright future of our sport! 1 fall and one pop were the only technical errors for both the SP and FS and they brought several different styles and approaches to skating but have a masterful command over the ice.

https://youtu.be/0CHUej5t0tI

..yep me too. I don't think skating will gain fans this time around either...

edited....I guess in the U.S. which to me would help the sport overall. It should be big in Japan. They have wonderful artistic and technical skaters combine.

lavender said:

..yep me too. I don't think skating will gain fans this time around either.

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Well I don’t think the artistic aspect has anything to do with that and Japan and Russia are likley still picking up more and more fans. Their athletes are on it! Now in America where we only have a slight chance in the least watched disciplines ...yeah...go figure.

It depends on what you're into. For myself as an example, I get bored of music that's not busy with a lot of things going on all the time and different things to concentrate on at different times. A lot of the "beautiful" music becomes too boring for me to listen to after around 10 seconds.

It's the same way with skating. If I find myself thinking "Why aren't you doing something when you clearly could be?" it's probably a pretty boring program. I definitely greatly prefer watching Medvedeva or Zagitova-like choreography over stuff like Kostner and I really like the direction the sport is heading towards. Comparing today's programs to Vancouver's for example, today's are far more interesting and rewatchable.

Yes, perhaps the skaters don't have the charisma of Mao or Yuna, but to me the evolution of figure skating is a positive and I think that many people are being too conservative and afraid of change. I've re-watched the great programs on both sides of 2000 for instance and they're just immensely boring without exception. Kwan for example is just nostalgia I believe, she has some qualities but it's very boring and slow-paced to watch as a whole.

Don´t we have a thread like this every year?
Art is subjective.

Just look at the comments from Dick Button on twitter. He calls balletic to Alina Zagitova´s program.

Yeah, you and everyone.

I feel as though there were a number of beautifully artistic programs and there are some truly lovely skaters in the field. The issue is artistry isn't valuable anymore and likely will not be going forward thanks to Alina's win here. The message is clear: work the system and you don't need artistry. Alina's massive PCS jump is evidence of that. Presentation wise I don't think she was any better than Kaori; yet because she's capable of a rapid fire display of impressive jumps and can score through the roof technically, she's given PCS that suggest she's as accomplished in components as she is on the technical side of things...that is absolutely not the case.

Honestly I miss spiral sequences. I feel like it’s like “ok let’s stretch my leg up for 3 seconds” or “let’s Ina Bauer into another jump”

Shayuki said:

It depends on what you're into. For myself as an example, I get bored of music that's not busy with a lot of things going on all the time and different things to concentrate on at different times. A lot of the "beautiful" music becomes too boring for me to listen to after around 10 seconds.

It's the same way with skating. If I find myself thinking "Why aren't you doing something when you clearly could be?" it's probably a pretty boring program. I definitely greatly prefer watching Medvedeva or Zagitova-like choreography over stuff like Kostner and I really like the direction the sport is heading towards. Comparing today's programs to Vancouver's for example, today's are far more interesting and rewatchable.

Yes, perhaps the skaters don't have the charisma of Mao or Yuna, but to me the evolution of figure skating is a positive and I think that many people are being too conservative and afraid of change. I've re-watched the great programs on both sides of 2000 for instance and they're just immensely boring without exception. Kwan for example is just nostalgia I believe, she has some qualities but it's very boring and slow-paced to watch as a whole.

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well said. if artistic programs mean boring skating with boring music and forgettable programs like miyahara's - then it's really wrong artictics. even duck program of zagitova's is more enjoyble