Brand New Ideas for Programs

[BlissfulSynergy]

I want to see someone skate to the Rite of Spring. Just like what if? What would it even be like?

Are we sure that no skater has ever performed to at least some parts of the Rite of Spring though?

There should be a database available to check these kind of historical stats.

It would be a great choice if carefully edited and choreographed.

Keeping Score | Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (FULL DOCUMENTARY AND CONCERT)

Almost a hundred years ago, Igor Stravinsky shocked the Western world with his ballet score, The Rite of Spring, a highly charged and confrontational piece. ...

www.youtube.com

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

Are we sure that no skater has ever performed to at least some parts of the Rite of Spring though?

There should be a database available to check these kind of historical stats.

It would be a great choice if carefully edited and choreographed.

Keeping Score | Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (FULL DOCUMENTARY AND CONCERT)

Almost a hundred years ago, Igor Stravinsky shocked the Western world with his ballet score, The Rite of Spring, a highly charged and confrontational piece. ...

www.youtube.com

Nathan Chen (mixed with Mao's Last Dancer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDwz-Ifhr6Y
Yuna Kim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCuwyo2jjqI (second half of program, first half is Scheherazade).

 

[katymay]

The music from the short-lived TV show The Borgias! Yes!! About this powerful Italian Renaissance family.

Similarly, the soundtrack from either season 2 or season 3 of Fargo (the TV series) both soundtracks are on Youtube.

 

[gkelly]

I understand what you're saying. The straitjacket of rules, and also the fear of taking too many risks. Without risk-taking, there are few rewards. But yes, a big part of the problem is not only the limitations imposed by rules and status quo expectations, but the fact that as I said earlier, tried-and-true war horses or safe tunes are simply easier to choreograph and put together within a short time. Plus, as we know, athletes do not tend to have a lot of time in the first place to spend on being as creative as they might wish to be.

It's also that some musical rhythms fit well with the rhythms of stroking and gliding across the ice necessary to display good skating quality and to set up difficult jumps (or lifts, twists, throws), or to demonstrate the clean edges and turns necessary for higher level step sequences. Other rhythms would actively work against the skater's ability to execute the elements.

It's also difficult to connect complex spins to music of any sort.

Skaters may reject a piece of music they love to listen to or dance to off ice, not because are afraid of doing something different, but because that particular brand of different is not "skatable" in the context of what they need to achieve on the ice.

The pieces that have become warhorses have largely done so because their rhythms happen to mesh especially well with the physical demands of skating.

In a long program comprised of several different pieces of music might be able to use a piece that doesn't work well with most skating moves just for a part of the program that does work well with that pieces style and rhythms. Perhaps a choreo sequence in which the specific moves are chosen to match the music (as opposed to choosing music that matches the rhythms needed for jumping and gliding), maybe some spins if they weren't going to match the music any way, and some transitional steps or in-place movement in the style of that music, possibly a leveled step sequence, or steps leading into their easiest jumps.

But most of the program would need to be music that supports rather than works against the required technical skills.

As @Ic3Rabbit mentioned, there's more room to choose music that doesn't work well with jumping and/or gliding in professional or show programs, where skaters can choose skills to include in the program based on what enhances the music, rather than what music can enhance the skills they are required to do.

And for some kinds of music, in ice dance, where there are no difficult explosive tricks involved and dancing to the music is the whole point of the sport. (However, in that case the rhythms are expected to be "danceable" and therefore relatively consistent within a musical passage.)

A rare skater who has excellent command of technique and also innate musicality might be able to make a more challenging, less glide-friendly piece of music work, especially in a short program or a minute or so of a freeskate. But if it's a challenge for the best of the best to make it work in the context of a competitive program, there won't be many less-skilled skaters who will adopt the same music for their own skating.

Put it this way:

When you envision a skater in your head skating to an unused/underused piece of music, what kinds of moves do you envision them doing?

Are we sure that no skater has ever performed to at least some parts of the Rite of Spring though?

I posted two examples in post #310 of this thread.

 

[eppen]

A rare skater who has excellent command of technique and also innate musicality might be able to make a more challenging, less glide-friendly piece of music work, especially in a short program or a minute or so of a freeskate. But if it's a challenge for the best of the best to make it work in the context of a competitive program, there won't be many less-skilled skaters who will adopt the same music for their own skating.

The whole post I fully agreed with, but this I think is especially what I have also thought. The athletic and artistic talents don't always reside in the same skater and you can make it by being good with the athletic side and only adequate in artistry. If that is case, the warhorse could possibly help the skater seem more expressive - the viewer reacts to the emotions in the familiar music rather than what the skater is doing.

But for an unsual choice of music and a choreo that pretty much maintains the chosen style even in a competition program - Aleksander Selevko's rather brilliant hiphop SP for this season. He has to give in a little in the prep for the 4Lz, but most of it is pretty much in the style rather than weaving in and out.

E

 

[TallyT]

I'm listening to the sublimely beautiful Ashokan Farewell, and I think that a gala piece, for someone like Jason, with this would be to die for....

Ashokan Farewell - Great Version!

Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar, performed by JR Perkins. Sorry that the video longer than it should be, it was my mistake.

www.youtube.com

 

[eppen]

A few weeks ago, I watched the men’s free from Challenge Cup and only then saw Gabriele Frangipani’s (ITA) FS for the first time (video from the Italian GP series though). It left me baffled and frustrated because I could see that it was bursting with clues as to how to interpret the content of the choreography and I just could not understand what was supposed to be going on.

Gabriele is not half bad when it comes to interpretation and getting the movement right etc. and the choreo is by Benoit Richaud who produces often interesting programs. I decided to put this analysis here, because the pieces of music were cool – I was thrilled to hear Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds if anything! – and just about unheard of. However, the concept was an old and familiar one: movie/TV soundtrack used along with the main ideas of the film/TV series.

Doing brand new things requires maybe a little bit more from the choreo to make it work for the viewer who might not have any idea what is coming. So, as I said, lots of clues in this one. The costume to begin with: vintage suit and bowtie. So something from the late 19th/early 20th century? Chaplin? Moulin Rouge? The music track starts with church bells, Gabriele turns around to give the judges a stern look, maybe intending an even menacing one, so definitely not Chaplin. A voiceover says (I think) “I was one of the Peaky Blinders”. Which was a very friendly clue assuming that the viewer knows that a) Peaky Blinders is a TV show about b) early 20th century criminals in Birmingham. I had never watched the show, but had a vague idea what it is all about, so I felt I was on the map.

Another assumption that came with the TV show connection was that the music probably had to do with the show. Although I had no idea what part Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand played in it. For me, it is a fabulous rock song, although I had not ever thought about what it was all about (the music and Cave’s voice have always been more interesting than the words somehow). As the program went on, two other songs came and went, but neither was familiar to me and because the sound quality was poor, could not hear the lyrics properly. The bluesy sounds of the songs were also a bit menacing, especially the first and the last one. Between songs, there were two additional voiceovers, muddled (cannot make out what is said even with headphones), but the British accent of the speaker is clear.

Then the choreo. Gabriele was busy doing all kinds of things between the elements. First, I noticed the hand sticking out, then it was the cigarette thrown away, then he poured a drink and drank it, on second viewing I noticed the cutting of the throat (and maybe hanging?). So, I was wondering whether there was a story line here? However, if there was, I could not understand at all what was going on. Even with all those clues…

I was curious enough to start figuring it out. So, all the song are from the show and Red Right Hand is the theme song. The other two are a version of a Bob Dylan song, Ballad of a Thin Man and a version of Bo Diddley’s I’m a Man. I looked up the lyrics (which you cannot hear very well in any of the videos) and the connections between the songs started to become clearer – they were about “a man” all of them. In the first he arrives in a black coat, in the second his mysteriousness is discussed (maybe? lyrics can be interpreted often in very many ways) and the last one is all about his masculine qualities.

When I watched this for the third time with the lyrics of the songs in front of me, I suddenly realized that the right hand sticking out every now and then probably refers to Red Right Hand and this was the key to opening the interpretation for me. The lyrics connect the songs and the central idea around a guy, probably somehow a central figure in the criminal world of the Peaky Blinders. Quite likely no storyline then, just a character.

The third viewing underlined the menacing quality of the songs, the first and last especially. The theme is crime, violence, aggression. And had Gabriele managed to convey the menace and the aggression, I think the whole would have worked a lot better. But especially in the last part with the step sequence, he manages to look a wanna-be criminal, one of those slightly amusing characters who lighten the mood of the show, they try hard and fail in imitating the hero. I have a hard time buying the connection between the lyrics about ultra-masculinity and what Gabriele is doing on the ice.

So, I had to do quite a lot of research and watch this three times before I could make heads or tails of it all. And am still wondering about the possibility of a storyline.

The choreography and the thought put into it I respect a lot - obviously no cookie cutter program, but it does not work maybe as well as hoped. You need to either know the TV show or have optimal research and listening possibilities to catch all the things happening.

Sticking to familiar stories behind familiar music makes sense after this experience!

E

 

[ladyjane]

Quite apart from the music, Gabrielle always has 1 good and 1 bad programme. Not on purpose of course, but it's just as if he never can skate two good programmes in one competition. Such a pity.

 

[Bluediamonds09]

Ballet music i haven't heard used:

*Pharoah's Daughter
*Flames of Paris

 

[elektra blue]

Ballet music i haven't heard used:

*Pharoah's Daughter
*Flames of Paris

also La Sylphide, Midsummer night dream and la fille mal gardè