John Kerr's thoughts on Free Dance, Worlds 2011
May 2, 2011
By John Kerr
Photos © Vicky Azhoychik
Since I am taking a rather long flight from the US to Scotland via Ireland
today I will keep my impressions to the Top-5 today.
On
an exciting night of competition, Meryl Davis and Charlie White
made history by becoming the first American team to take the World
ice dance title.
Their Tango free dance was a technical masterpiece full of intricate transitions
and high energy. The attack in this routine was extraordinary, and they
held absolutely nothing back, which was just as well considering
how well Virtue/Moir had performed moments earlier. It was the type of attack
that can often lead to a mistake, but they were foot perfect. My only criticism
would be that even though they displayed great physical intensity in the
routine, they didn¹t have the intense emotional connection that marks
the truly 'authentic' Argentine tango. I am being picky, but I have to be
because they really have no other weaknesses that I can think of.
I had no idea what to expect from Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir,
but they totally blew me away with their performance. They took themselves
completely out of their comfort zone (Mahler, etc.), and they succeeded
brilliantly.
Latin is not always the easiest style to take on the ice because it is basically
a static dance (i.e. it does not use a lot of space on the dance floor).
I honestly thought their performance might give them the gold medal, but
sometimes the competition can look very different on TV as opposed to being
there in the arena. I personally preferred this performance to Meryl &Charlie,
but both teams are so close in ability that it can really come down to personal
preference- or a call on an element...
In
my review of the Short Dance I stated that only a monumental 'f*** up of
epic proportions' could deny Nathalie Pechelat and Fabian Bourzat
of the Bronze medal. Unfortunately that's exactly what happened.
It was all going so well until Fabian leaned a little too much into his
skating foot on the first step of their step sequence which brought him,
and Nathalie, crashing to the ice. Because this they were forced to miss
the entire one foot section of the step sequence, which meant that it could
earn no more than a Level 1 with a -3 GOE. They lost a minimum of 8 points
for a slight loss of control on 1 step in a routine containing 100's of
steps. It¹s a harsh punishment, but that is the nature of modern ice
dancing.
In Worlds last year Fabian said something to me in the changing room that
helped me reconsider thoughts to retire. He said, and I paraphrase 'you
know we are the lucky ones getting to do what we do'. That was something
I had forgotten about and it resonated with me to such an extent that it
helped me make the decision to come back for this season. I'm sure he will
be hurting right now but he is the kind of guy who will 
get
over it pretty quickly.
The biggest surprise of the Dance event was the Bronze medal of Maia and Alex Shibutani. They skated beautifully and from an aesthetic point of view I could not see one arm, leg, finger, toe, or head out of place in over 4 minutes of dancing. Like the short dance it did not have the difficulty in transitions that you would expect in a dance so highly placed but if they gave up something in difficulty then they certainly regained it in the execution.
I
n
5th place was my favourite team of the competition. I didn't always feel
that the Free Dance of Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje was
quite up to the same level as the Short Dance but that certainly wasn't
the case on Friday night. They held absolutely nothing back in their content
packed routine to 'Moulin Rouge'. Some might feel that there are too many
changes of music in it- the entire movie synopsis condensed into 4 minutes,
is how I first described it- but on this showing I think it worked perfectly.
Great lifts, excellent skating skills, and wonderful choreography have taken
this team to a truly World class level this season.
Love, John K
