Helene

1. Nancy Kerrigan had a typical competitive program of her era. I've never heard her called an artist, and I don't think she was or that she tried to be, as either a competitive skater or a professional. 2. I loved the Robyn Byrd show. It was like watching The Tonight Show for strippers -- they'd sit in their robes and discuss their films like the actors who appear with Jay Leno, except the robe was usually more clothing than most actresses wear on Leno, and he never molests his guests at the end of the show. I always wished someone would teach the men how to take off their clothes so that it was part of their dance. The women figured it out.

This normally would be Ballet Talk for Dancers turf, but I'm using my first Admin-Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card in posting this, although if you watch the video, you'll see a brief moment with Natalia Osipova. Many Ballet Alertniks, especially those who read links, know about Julian and Nicholas Mackay, two young men from Montana who study at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. The Bolshoi Ballet Academy. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/arts/dance/01bolshoi.html http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_3b766228-7720-11df-b955-001cc4c03286.html Julian Mackay is in the running for an Expat Youth Scholarship, and he needs votes to continue his studies. The voting is hosted on Facebook. If you are a Facebook member and are interested, to vote, you must be signed into a Facebook account, and then 1. "Like" Expat Youth Scholarship, if you haven't already: https://www.facebook.com/expatyouth 2. Click the "VOTE HERE" link in the left-hand column. 3. Scroll to the second video, called "From Bison to Bolshoi" (I think that's its name; once you vote, the titles disappear.) 4. "Like" the video. 5. Some people are shown a "confirm" screen as well. If it appears, confirm the vote. Julian and his brother are on a great adventure!

In her time, it meant getting paid to skate and/or for endorsements. Now it means to perform in a show, tour, production, etc. that is not sanctioned by or without permission from the skater's national federation and/or by the International Skating Union, which means a skater loses eligibility to compete in ISU events and the Olympics, for which the ISU is recognized as the governing body. (Skaters are now called "eligible" rather than "amateur".) During the TV heydey for figure skating, the ISU loosened its regulations to allow skaters to compete in Pro-Ams and shows like "Champions on Ice", where they could earn enough to pay for their training, in order to prevent well-known skaters from going pro and not showing up on TV for what is now the ISU Grand Prix and the ISU championships, which was one of the reasons for the demise of professional skating. The technical demands for professional skating are much less than for eligible skating. Healy was a technically enough proficient skater to turn pro at an age where, depending on the school, she might not even have begun pointe work, or where she might be just beginning pointe work. A competitive skater that age would already have a number of jumps, spins, edges from school figures (which have been eliminated and are now a cult event), and years of semi-private and private coaching sessions. Whether she realized she would not have the full competitive arsenal of jumps and decided to go pro -- her wrap would have made it very difficult -- or it was an opportunity she didn't want to pass up because she had so many interests, we won't know unless she speaks about it. Compared to Curry's Olympic program, in terms of construction, coherency, and performance, I don't think there is another that matches it in singles, although Boitano's was very, very well constructed and skated and Kulik's and Arakawa's solid programs that were very well skated. By 1988, the skaters were doing all of the triples and triple/triple combinations, and Kulik added the quad; it wasn't until Patrick Chan's programs over the last few years -- by Curry alumna Lori Nichols -- that long, telegraphed entrances into difficult jumps that were considered necessary for several decades were replaced by footwork and changing edges into them for nearly every jump. (Chan still lacks them going into his nemesis jump, the triple axel.) Baiul's programs were neither that well skated nor well constructed, although her SP was better than her LP: flapping one's arms while one one's toe-picks does not an artist make, and her long program was an incoherent mix of brash show music. As far as elegance, any attempt was blown away by the way she roller-bladed down the ice to prepare for her jumps. It always reminds me of the male strippers on the Robyn Byrd show, who would be in their "Hey, baby" persona, until it was time to wriggle awkwardly out of their bike shorts. The second mark in the 6.0, ordinals, and OBO ("Or best ordinal") systems was called the "Artistic Mark". However, by the rules of figure skating, this was not a personal take on artistry, even if it was often used that way. There were about ten specific criteria, all of which are now covered in the new judging system in the five "Presentation Component Scores" (PCS), although the new system has more explicit sub-criteria for each of the components. They included glide, flow, unison, choreographic composition of the program, interpretation, and multi-directional skating. I've lost my link to the actual wording of the old "Artistic" mark.

From the article: How much has the piano changed technically since the age of recording? I ask because one of the issues raised in the development of PNB's "Giselle" was how much of the notated steps should be included in the new production, as many had been done for dancers of very different body types and training than today's dancers, and the dancers were hesitant to do choreography in which they did not look as close to technically perfect as possible, landing and finishing in tight fifths, for example. In Doug Fullington's excellent first "Balanchine's Petipa" lecture-demonstration from 2007, devoted to "Choreography for Men", Lucien Postlewaite, one of PNB's most virtuosic men, demonstrated Prince Desire's Act III that was reconstructed by Doug -- the program says "Choreography: Nikolai Legat?" -- and he did it in two parts, it was so difficult, especially for a dancer of today. (He was also in the middle of rehearsals, as these presentations were done in the dancers' spare time.) It was one of the reasons that the production's male variation for the Peasant Pas de Deux looked less intricate than the notated choreography, which James Moore demonstrated at the Guggenheim Works & Process series and in the preview of that presentation given in Seattle. One of the parallels about Cortot not being admitted to Juilliard now is that thousands of 16-year-old boys can do the virtuosic jumps that Baryshnikov did. I can't find the book, but I remember reading in "Striking a Balance", once of the dancers, maybe Lynn Seymour or Antoinette Sibley, spoke in the 70's about how the 32 fouettes, once a very big deal, were required on both sides to pass an RAD test.

In general, the bar for artistry is much lower in skating, which is either a competition, among the top skaters to be won or lost more often by technical difficulty, a gala by competitive skaters, or a professional show, which is almost always commercial. Even fans who adored the intensely creative Silvio Smalun, for example, wouldn't argue that he should have won a major competition. Or Lucinda Ruh, who is the greatest spinner in competitive skating history in her combination of speed, duration, and variety of positions, who couldn't buy a difficult jump. Ruh was lucky to come from Switzerland, where there is generally one significant Ladies' skater per generation and where she had little competition, ensuring her a spot at the major championships each year, and to have come of age when skating was being televised extensively. Otherwise, no one would have known her name. Healy, on the other hand, had she chosen an amateur skating career -- it was "amateur" in those days -- would have faced formidable competition in the US ranks, and her jump limitations would have made her a long-shot at best, even if she didn't have other serious interests and options, like ballet and Princeton. To have turned professional at age 11 means that her skating training was as least as formidable as her dance training -- SAB gets most intense a few years later, when students from outside the NY metro area swell the ranks -- and for Curry to have chosen her meant her basic skating was impeccable, but she had a much greater chance to be a ballet dancer than a competitive skater, based on her technical skills. I would love to say she had the best of both worlds, like Boston Ballet dancer Catherine Foulkes, who skated with Curry as well as dancing, but she always seemed to be torn, going back and forth, and there weren't many options to combine the two. In the professional ranks, outside the Soviet Union, where there had been a long and deep tradition of ice theater that was serious and state-subsidized, and to an extent in Russia today, where the tradition continues in spite of commercial pressure, commercial meant that Toller Cranston performed in the same show as the baby chimpanzee, for audiences who had come to see the chimpanzee. Scott Hamilton's Stars on Ice was a reaction to this tradition: no one in his show was going to be a chorus person dressed as a fruit or vegetable. However, apart from an occasional skater or team, the number of skating artists in any season is low to none, however great the skating, and Christopher Dean's consistent and exceptional creativity for his shows with Jayne Torvill was an exception in just about every way. However, there was a magic period of time where John Curry in his amateur career, even within the restrictions and expectations of competitive skating, showed that elusive artistry: his "Don Quixote" Long Program was masterful in the seamless transitions in music and movement, the posture, the glide the characterization, while Robin Cousins, who is an amazing skater, had musical cuts four years later that are un-listenable and his program has little coherence outside the requirements of competitive skating. Curry used the momentum of an Olympic victory to start a professional show to his standards, which were much closer to standards of the Royal Ballet, to which he aspired until his father put the kabosh on ballet lessons, than to Holiday on Ice, with an emphasis on ballet virtues and dance choreography. His performance of Maens' "Afternoon of a Faun" is exquisite; this excerpt is from a documentary about his company's rehearsals, in which the first 40 seconds is of him practicing the first part of Peter Martins' "Tango Tango", after which he speaks about his intentions with the piece: While he had guest stars in his shows like Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill who did not have to be ambidextrous like members of his company, and he had numbers with razzamatazz, just as Balanchine did with "Western Symphony", "Stars and Stripes", and the Wrens from "Union Jack", he was aiming for something much higher to co-exist: the list of choreographers for the programs performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1984 -- several of the greatest performances I've seen in any genre -- includes Lar Lubovich, Eliot Feld, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, Peter Martins, Laura Dean, and Twyla Tharp, although I think Maen's and Curry's work is generally superior. Healy wasn't the only ballet-trained or ballet professional in his company: Catherine Foulkes is the beautiful nymph in "Afternoon of a Faun" in the video above. Curry's venues were different, often, although not exclusively, high-brow, like the Met, compared to Radio City Music Hall, or in smaller arenas, compared to the much larger arenas in Europe and North America. His expectations and standards were higher. Of his company's Met Opera appearances, Jennifer Dunning wrote, "And while the simple, inbeauty of skating was seldom betrayed, this was a dream of dancing." Anna Kisselgoff wrote: Healy was mentored by Curry and met his expectations. By today's standards, Healy, Yu Na Kim, the reigning Olympic champion, and Mao Asada, the reigning Olympic silver medalist, would be considered "artists"; by Curry's standards, only Healy would have been the perfectly baked Parisian baguette. It depends on whom you are asking: to the average figure skating fan, the word "artist" would be applied to a wide range of skaters who s/he finds interesting. To the average ballet fan, there are plenty of dancers with flash and technique s/he would call "ballerina". Which ties to the topic raised in the NYT about technical virtuosity among pianists, which Mme Hermine posted here. For me, Healy was one of the few female solo artists on ice. Janet Lynn was another. Today I think that Laura Lepisto comes closest, because of her beautiful edges and musicality. There were more among the female ice dancers, like Maia Usova and Marina Klimova. There are more among the men, but I think that's because they don't have to fit the "ice princess" mold.

Healy studied under and performed with John Curry before she became a professional ballet dancer. Curry demanded as much seriousness and commitment from his skaters as many a great ballet teacher. As a professional, he pared down jumps to the minimum, after performing three types of triples in his 1976 Free Skate. (Four years later, Robin Cousins attempted four triples, including a repeat of the triple toe or triple salchow, but he did not land his triple loop, the most difficult of his triples, which Curry landed with ease, in his Olympic free skate. Curry had excellent difficulty for his time.) He would not have demanded the most difficult jumps of Healy, rather other qualities, like the ability to spin in both directions, superior edge control, and alignment and posture not required by many a skating coach outside school figures. The irony is that Simon G's characterization of Healy as a dancer was that she was highly technical, but not a great artist, while the criticism of Healy as a skater by many was that she did not have the technique -- by which they meant jumps, because her spirals, spins, and edges were beautiful -- but was considered a great artist on ice.