Helene

A series of thoughts, Mel Tomlinson wasn't my favorite dancer at New York City Ballet, but I remember looking at the roles in which he was cast -- the Arthur Mitchell roles in Agon and 4 T's, death or underworld figures in La Valse, Orpheus, and the closing piece in the Tchaikovsky Festival -- there seemed to me a line between the types of roles in which he was cast and those in which he wasn't that transcended ability or body type. Albert Evans has said that he's not interested in the classical prince/cavalier roles, but it would have been interesting to see if he had wanted these roles to see how frequently he would have been first cast as Siegfried or in Diamonds. Opera provides more variety for both men and women -- by definition, they are stories -- but it still is uncommon for a black opera singer to play a romantic lead other than Aida, who's supposed to be Ethiopian, or Carmen, who can be cast "exotic," at least in the US. (Not counting Porgy and Bess or Margaret Garner.) Vinson Cole is, in my opinion, one of the finest tenors on the planet, but he's not touted as a "hot" romantic lead, despite being cast in the standard rep in Seattle, and I've never seen Thomas Young, a great Elijah Mohammed in X and Aron in Moses und Aron cast as Cavaradossi, Don Ottavio, or any other standard heroic role of any tenor genre. I saw a documentary a few years ago at the Seattle International Film Festival, whose main topic was the schism between popular dance among the poorer, more African-based community in Cuba, and the lighter-skinned elite. A woman from a flamenco-based company gave her spiel about how the art form was European, and implied that this was somehow superior, and only light-skinned people moving in light-skinned ways would do. I thought this was ironic, because the National Ballet of Cuba is the most integrated-looking ballet company I've ever seen, with the widest color range of people. (Apparently, Alicia Alonso doesn't subscribe to this woman's view.) Are the dancers in National Ballet of Cuba considered elite in Cuba? I would think so, given the number of fathers who are happy to push their sons into a field that gives them as much recognition and respect as baseball, although not nearly the same potential financial rewards outside Cuba. Dancing is perceived as opportunity, a way to gain respect in the community, and this appears to have transcended race, I believe, because training is subsidized and is available to the gifted, not just to the middle class to wealthy -- what's more "elitist" than that? -- and the evidence that it is possible to succeed regardless of skin tone is right on stage. Until fifty years or so ago, professional sports in the US was all-white or nearly all-white. That didn't make baseball or basketball elitist, even among the black community. The black community had the Negro Leagues and equivalents, and kids of all races played those sports at an early age. Participation wasn't limited to a specific body type or skin color, and there were local, community forms of the sport beside the major leagues. It was just a matter of time before professional sports, and popular music for that matter, would become integrated, even if sports and music management has not: they are commercial ventures, and the pressure of the marketplace demanded the best players over time, since "winning," not form or style is the object. It's ironic that we see the effects of "the market" on programming that seem to dumb down the rep, but for all of the supposed "hipness" of Draculas and hip-hop- and pop-based "products," they are still being danced by beneficiaries of a tradition that has been handed down for centuries and which limits participation not only to specific range of body types, but seemingly to a specific range of skin tone, with few exceptions. Watching the Olympics, I also find it interesting that the "X" sports -- moguls, aerial skiing, halfpipe -- are as lily-white as downhill skiing, figure skating, or any of the other sports that are considered elitist, and for which training is also limited by the ratio of income to geography, are hugely popular and considered populist. The hip young former inline skaters -- a generally popular and affordable sport; add skates to asphalt and stir -- who've converted to long and short track speed skating are white as they come, yet are not considered elitist. I think this is because there is a connection between participation in the "building blocks" of the sport -- rollerblading, skateboarding -- and the elite participants, and, again, it's conceivable that it's only a matter of time before they are integrated, because some kids on a skate board can envision him or herself "doing that." Those who stumble on the sidewalk, just like I used to flub my way through tendu at the barre during adult classes, still feel a connection to the activity itself.

That applies to the free skate (long program) only, though. There is no bonus (10% of base value added to base value) for distributing elements in the short program, and, thus, no incentive.

Front-loading has been a characteristic of Russian singles short programs for years, and there has never been a discernable penalty in the presentation mark (OBO) or choreography component score (CoP) for doing so. Slutskaya has started her short program with the three jumps since at least 2002. Most singles skaters couple two jumps and then leave the third to the third-to-last element. However, if you look at the opening elements for the free skate, just about every skater starts with the three hardest jump elements, usually including the hardest jump combination, then a spin, then another jump. Sometimes it's four jumps and a spin, and rarely two jumps, a spin, two jumps. It's a way to get the hardest things over with, and then a break, before the lactic acid builds up to turn the legs into noodles.

I liked her interview. The two quotes that struck me the most were, (we've had similar discussions about ballet) and which we've touched on in our discussion on Gelb's plans for the Met.

I totally agree with you. The only thing tentative about their performance, which has been the case since her awful fall last year, is that he is very careful during the lifts. Still, they had great ice coverage, and her air position is lovely. The rest of the program fit the music like a glove. I was lucky to see a lesser performance of this program in Paris last fall, but their soft blades and ice coverage don't translate very well to TV. Pang/Tong were at TEB, too, and there was no comparison. I would love to see Shen/Zhao's Madame Butterfly program skated cleanly. She does have such great attention to detail, and Lori Nichol has done two beautiful, transition-filled programs for them. In an interview today they said that while they wouldn't be at the next Olympic games in Vancouver, they are not planning to retire, because Shen still wants to skate. The Chinese pairs are notorious for having bad side-by-side spins, although they have been steadily improving. It was ironic that Pang/Tong excelled on this element last night, while they had little errors on other elements that are usually consistent for them.

Sorry, zerbinetta, I meant the "yes!" for Golijov as a Marv Albertian cheer for hiring him.

Thanks you for your reviews and comments, Ceeszi and nysusan! What a joy to discover a new favorite. It sounds like a real coup to have presented the two tango dancers, Alvarez and Hoffmann. Did Dvorovenko and Beloserkovsky dance from the version of Carmen that Alonso choreographed for Plitsetskaya?

Patrice Chereau? I guess that Gelb is going to drag the Met kicking and screaming from the 1960's straight into the 1970's. I mean we're not exactly talking cutting edge here, let alone bleeding edge. I, for one, am thrilled that he's bringing the Minghella Madame Butterfly to New York. (I hope it's the same physically stunning sets and costumes as well.) There's nothing outre about this production. If he had done nothing else in Doctor Atomic, John Adams has written the first 21st century "greatest hit" aria for Oppenheimer to end the first act, a stunner, and a fabulous aria for Kitty Oppenheimer. (I would not be surprised to learn that these are already being used on the audition circuit, especially where an English-language aria is required.) And there's plenty more to listen to, particularly in the scenes with Teller and Wilson. (Now if they'd just jettison the dated -- not even from the right era -- generic, Lucinda Childs choreography.) Both of these productions are acclaimed; Gelb is not exactly going out on a limb. Golijov -- yes! -- but it's not like he's programming an unknown serialist. I'm going to have to figure out how to get to New York more often. The Met has given me little incentive over the last decade, but the Gelb era threatens to make the Met appealing. I may even have to see what Karita Matila and George Wolfe -- whose portrait would not be next to the definition of "Eurotrash" in the dictionary -- do with Tosca, after I promised myself I'd let that opera rest for at least a decade.

When I heard the Kirov Opera perform The Demon at the Met a couple of years ago, I was concerned for a number of the younger singers, like Evgeni Nikitin, who sang the lead. I know that Gergiev is branding the Kirov as a new and exciting and photogenic young company, but I have to worry about their voices. I'm almost cringing to see who will be cast in the 2007 Ring Cycle, and hope there are two casts, because Cycle A is Friday/Saturday on two consecutive weekends, with Cycle B squeezed in between on four consecutive days.

Technically, under the old system, by which I mean the most recent incarnation of the "OBO" (Or Best Ordinal) system before NJS, there were no deductions in the Long Program/Free Skate; the skater's score was supposed to be based on what s/he landed. Only in the Short Program were there mandatory deductions for falls, errors or missed elements. Since the judges were doing all of the valuations in their head -- i.e., determining the relative difficulty and importance of elements, by definition creating a cumulative technical score which, when added to the presentation score, represented placement (first best, second best, better than skater A but worse than skater B), and also determining what element was performed -- it's impossible to say how much a fall or the type of fall would affect the technical score. For example, many commentators felt that if Shen/Zhao had landed the Throw 4Salchow and have been relatively clean for the rest of the program in 2002, at least some of the judges would have given Shen/Zhao first or second place ordinals. It would have required upping the technical and presentation scores, but it wouldn't have been the first time that presentation scores were inflated because of technical accomplishments; I saw this happen under the new system for Mao Asada at Trophee Eric Bompard. How the type of fall might have impacted the presentation score is also up to the individual judges in both systems, at least in practice. Given that the referee stopped the program after Dan Zhang's fall, one judge might have said that after the program started again, there was no real interruption in the middle of the program, and marked it highly, while another judge might have said it was a huge disruption and marked it lower. Likewise, the first judge might have considered Inoue's fall a huge disruption because it came in the middle of the program, while the second judge would have said, "no big deal, she popped right up," and both of them would be able to defend their positions. Another judge might have deducted for both equally, and another might have ignored both equally. Under the new system, the element itself was evaluated and downgraded to a throw 3 Salchow, and because there was a fall, the computer assigned an automatic GOE of -3, which translates into a loss of 2 points for that element, and a fall deduction of -1. Zhang/Zhang got credit for a base score of 4.5 -2 for the element, or 2.5, but their total score was reduced by 1 point as well. Under OBO on the technical side, they shouldn't have been given credit for the element, but, again, some judges might have given them some props for trying, all rolled up into that single technical score. When Shen/Zhao fell on the 4Salchow attempt in SLC, while they received third-place ordinals across the board, the Russian judge, Marina Sanaia, gave Totmianina/Marinin a higher mark for tech, but the tie-breaker for the Free Skate was based on the second mark. (Every other judge scored Shen/Zhao higher in tech.) Different judging panels under the old system seemed to reward different types of performances. In general, for Men's skating under OBO, particularly after school figures were devalued and then eliminated, the truism at least was if both skaters were in the same general league, there was a scorecard of jump attempts, and whoever landed the most and/or hardest relatively cleanly and not horribly underrotated won. For example, at the Calgary Olympics in 1988 after Brian Boitano skated a flawless long program, Brian Orser had a faulty landing on a jump towards the beginning of his program. The US commentators immediately said that it was over, Boitano had won the gold. It didn't matter that Orser's program might have been more technically difficult to offset the error, or that he might have had better skating skills. That particular panel judged in a way that seemed to endorse the old gymnastics way of scoring: you started with a 10 and each error chipped away at it; there was no making anything up with extra credit. The same happened in Salt Lake City, when Anton Sikharulidze had a faulty landing on the 2Toe in combination, which was a momentary "blip." To many US and Western European commentators, that was the deciding factor: Berezhanaia/Sikharulidze had made a mistake, and Sale/Pelletier had not. Of course, since there isn't a set of individual elements and components to see, we really don't know what factored into the judges' decision. Maybe they thought Boitano was more spontaneous and interpretive than Orser, or they thought that Boitanos individual jumps in general warranted higher scores. Maybe each judge had his/her own reasoning. Maybe the judges who didn't care which North American won had made a deal on behalf of one of their own skaters in another discipline. In an interview a couple of years ago, when she was still coaching in California, Irina Rodnina said that Frank Carroll was naive: since the Russian judge didn't care whether Kwan or Lipinski won gold in 1998, he should have sent a bottle of vodka to the Russian judge to ensure the judge's loyalty and vote. The last time OBO was used for Worlds was 2004, but it was the second season that CoP was used for the Grand Prix events. Stefan Lindemann of Germany won the bronze medal in Dortmund, and a lot of fans thought Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland "wuzrobbed" because he landed one more quad than Lindemann and had more inventive spins in general. (I say "in general" because he had one perfunctory, fairly mediocre camel spin as well, and one of his fancier spins had a significant travel.) It may very well have been that the judges were swayed by the crowd or the amazing practices Lindemann had had all week -- the judges attend practices, in theory so they know what to expect -- or they may have actually done the math to find that Lindemann had difficult entrances into a couple of jumps, like a spread eagle into a 3Axel and steps into the 3Lutz, a 3Axel/3Toe combination, and generally smoother flow out of his jumps, which could have evened out the advantage on the quad and the larger mistake he made on the quad combo. That's the kind of "reasoning" that's built into the technical scores under NJS, except the computer contains the data and makes the calculations based on the judges' GOE scores.

Rena Inoue took a massive fall on the throw 3Axel, got up, and without missing a beat, finished the LP. On CBC Barbara Underhill noted that she saw Inoue do this in practice repeatedly. She is one tough competitor. Chinese and Soviet pairs teams are/were matched when they were very young, their training was subsidized and centralized, with little parental financial support or interference, and, with rare (and sometimes notorious) exception, they stayed together until the coaches or Federation split them up or they retired. The skaters who trained under the Soviet system also had the advantage of training that emphasized basic skating skills, like efficient and quiet stroking, and synchronicity. The last half hour of each coaching session typically was spent stroking around the rink, and functioned much like barre does for ballet dancers. Berezhnaia/Sikharulidze may have competed after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but their basic training was Soviet. (Not every US coach is like Priscilla Hill, who insisted that Weir, who came to her with few basic skills as a 12-year old, skate pairs, so that he was forced to learn basic stroking and unison. Now, he has among the softest blades in skating.) Often the women, who were selected by body type the same way that ballet dancers were, were very young teenagers when matched to the men, who had reached full height. In the Soviet era, and, after a decade lull, now in Russia, figure skaters are like rock stars and NBA players: in the past, a way to get better apartments and job and educational opportunities; now a lotto-like celebrity scheme. In China, the basic skills are somewhat ignored in lieu of big tricks, but the pay-off for becoming a pairs skater is even comparatively greater than in Russia. The Soviet Federation also took the best skaters and put them in pairs or dance. Their dominance was such that after a top pair or dance team retired, it was almost unheard of for the new #3 team to place lower than 6th at their first Worlds Worlds, and it wasn't unusual for the #3 team to medal in their first or second Worlds. Despite Ismene Brown's assertion that John Curry and Robin Cousins broke a "superpower" lockjam in Men's singles, after US domination in the 50's, the 1961 plane crash which killed the entire US team and many of the top coaches led to titles by skaters from Canada, France, East Germany, Austria -- the Men's podium was dominated by the three-year run by Austrian Emmerich Danzer (with silvers from fellow Austrian Wolfgang Schwartz in two of these) -- and three consecutive titles from the great Czech skater Ondrej Nepala. Tim Woods of the US won two titles and a silver medal and Gary Visconti two bronzes during the 15-year period from the crash to Curry's gold at Sapporo, and there were two Soviet men, Vladimir Kovalev, and Vladimir Chetverukhin who medalled during the 19-year period from the crash to Cousins' gold in Lake Placid. It wasn't until the mid 1990's that Russian men started to dominate Men's singles. The first World medal won by a Soviet woman was Elena Vodorezova's bronze in 1983, followed by silvers in 1984 by Anna Kondrashova and in 1985 by the late Kira Ivanova. There was not another Soviet Ladies' medal; the first Russian Ladies medallist was Slutskaya's bronze in 1996 -- she also won silver in 1998, 2000, and 2001, and the World titles in 2002 and 2005 -- followed by Butyrskaya's title and Julia Soldatova's bronze in 1999, and Elena Sokolova's silver in 2003. Singles skating was not a priority: the best of the best skated pairs or dance. Oleg Vassiliev, a product of the Soviet Pairs systems and the 1984 Olympic Gold medallist with Elena Valova, said he had to teach the former singles skaters Totmianina and Marinin skating basics, like brackets and rockers, which, until 1990, they would have learned through the school figures that were then eliminated. That they have such great unison, blade efficiency, and flow is remarkable, considering how late in their teens they started pairs skating. (Marinin gave up singles at 15, the first time he was beaten by the much-younger Plushenko.) Moskvina had more international success with the US team Ina/Zimmerman, whom she co-trained with Berezhnaia/Sikharulidze, than with the young teams of Obertas/Slavnov and the talented Borzenkova/Chivuyaev, who have been unable to break into the top three Russian teams. (Hopefully they'll be competitive after Totmianina/Marinin's and Petrova/Tikhonov's retirement.) North American pairs have several things that make championships difficult. First is the cost, which is catching up to the Russian skaters. (Moskvina is a coach/agent: she coaches for free, and gets a percentage of the skaters' earnings from their earnings from shows. Tarasova, when she was in Connecticut, and Vassiliev in Chicago have sweetheart deals with rinks, and subsidized their Russian skaters with other earnings.) The cost of training a competitive team is minimally $50K a year, if some things are donated, or one parent barters by running the rink's zamboni, and it's not unusual to cost $100K per year, especially if the skaters are not living at home. Men are at a premium, and often the woman's parents are expected to foot the bill. There's a bitter phrase "rent-a-Russian" to describe the phenomenon, much exaggerated, of the number of Russian skaters who have paired with US partners, but it is much more common for American men to be fully subsidized, because they can call the shots. It also isn't unusual to have the parents of talented young girls in pairs to "hire" an older, experienced partner for an interim period. Having seen the junior pairs at Canadian Nationals this year, if I had a daughter, I would not want her to be lifted by some of the weaker boys, who at 15- or 16- didn't have the upper body strength to secure an overhead lift. At those prices, US parents want results, and usually rather quickly. There's little social incentive -- the boys are likely to be harrassed at best and beaten up at worst -- apart from the close-knit skating community, and it's a big risk, particularly when two young teenagers are paired, and the growth patterns are yet unknown. For example, the extremely talented #2 Canadian pair of Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison, both second-rank singles skaters, almost quit after she had a growth spurt and the puberty monster struck. (She would not have been accepted in the Soviet program -- one look at her bone structure and musculature would have eliminated her from contention. And she's by no means big.) Second is relative wealth. US figure skating parents might not all be wealthy, but Plushenko's mother gave up her job to pave streets in sub-zero weather so that she could affort a place in a room in an apartment in St. Petersburg for them to live in. The poverty that practically the entire city of Harbin lived in is inconceivable to North American parents who even consider figure skating for their children. It will be interesting to see in twenty years, after the growth of the middle class in Russia and increased wealth and more general opportunity, whether a coach like Mishin will be able to find the literally hungry young men to dominate the sport. Third is that there's no centralized system to match skaters. Not every parent is willing to send his/her 13-year-old away to train, which is/was standard for Soviet/Russian training, particularly when there are no dorms or supervision. Pairs matches are made by local coaches in general, and they don't have access to the best matches. Fourth is that there is little respect for the early coach who instills basic skills and then sends his/her student on for advanced training. There's little recognition for the equivalent of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet-level training in figure skating. It's pretty much all-or-nothing. And since the ticket for getting more and better students is having a successful singles skater, since that is what the demand is for, singles coaches are loathe to turn their very good, but not podium-quality singles skaters over to pairs coaches. There is an SAB-like academy being created by some of the former Soviet skaters-turned-coach in the US, complete with full training regimen and dormitories. It will be interesting to see whether US parents will adapt to paying tuition and leaving their kids in the hands of the professionals.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: In the pairs free skate, Inoue and Baldwin attempted another throw 3 Axel. Inoue fell badly, but got right up and kept going. Their 7th place finish was 4 places above their 11th place finish at Worlds, and they made history by landing the first throw 3 Axel in Olympic history in the short program. Shen/Zhao skated very well, considering that he ruptured his Achilles tendon last fall and had only started to jump in January, with his first triple jump attempts in Torino. Unfortunately, in the short program he landed the side-by-side 3Toes, while she put her hand down, and in the free skate, he again landed the 3Toe, but she put her hand down on the 2Toe that followed in combination. (He later singled the solo side by side 2Axel attempt.) Both of their programs are beautifully choreographed by Lori Nichol, and the had an extraordinary amount of difficulty in the transition. In retrospect, had she landed those two jumps with her usual consistency, they would have been silver medallists. Pang/Tong skated their best free skate of their shaky season, but they just ended up behind Shen/Zhao. I thought they were a bit rough, and their jumps were downgraded to side-by-side 2Toes and a 2Axel/1Toe combination, because she didn't rotate them fully, which probably would have been ignored under the 6.0/OBO system. Totmianina/Marinin skated a near-flawless performance to end their career with a personal best. I love this pair and am so happy for them. Zhang/Zhang skated last and were the only pair to have a mathematical chance to beat Totmianina/Marinin; they scheduled an opening throw 4 Salchow. Dan Zhang got 3.5 times around, but facing front opened out, landed forward on her right toe pick, and in a spread-eagle-like position slammed her left hip and knee into the ice before slamming into the boards. The referee asked them if they would continue to skate, and after a few minutes, they said they'd continue. The rules have changed from giving them the option of starting over or continuing where they left off to dictating that they must start where they left off. Their music started over, and they circled the ice until they picked up with the combination jump, which they landed very well. They skated a little tentatively. She had tight landings on the side-by-side 3Salchows and the throw 3 Loop, and he made a couple of uncharacteristic bobbles, but nothing serious. They had tremendous height on their 3 Twist, and the levels of their elements were all 3's and 4's. Their components scores were behind Shen/Zhao's and Pang/Tongs, but only marginally, which fueled a number of debates on the figure skating boards about whether they deserved a silver (or any) medal after her fall and the interruption, but I have to admire her grit and courage to skate like that after getting the wind knocked out of her and suffering a knee injury.