hoodie axel

@ralucutzagy thanks for the vids thread!!

EDIT: I'm at my 2019th post in 2019 lol

Oh! Then I don't mind. She performed well with Gypsy Dance.

Can someone remind me of a Scali program? I feel like I should expect a warhorse.

I think that's his layback I found more. Stay tuned!

Just saw that it will be, on KBS2 on Saturday! Hope someone uploads vids, at any rate. http://aqstream.com/kbs2/KBS2-Stream-2 Credit x

Is this show going to be aired like last summer? Which date, if so?

I sure hope that's not the song?

I don't think longevity with nothing much of note is a good thing. Nichol has more longevity than Wilson, for me, because she's had great programs since 1996 worlds with Kwan at the very least (I'm fairly sure I remember seeing her with a few top guns in 1988 Olympics too). Maybe Wilson has been around longer than that, but how many great programs do you remember of his?

Why?

When you lose something you gain something Hopefully, she can focus on her performance instead of hurting her back.

Yeah. https://twitter.com/TheAnnaWatson/status/1118534285898788870

She's throwing herself a little more than Zhou that's for sure. I think she improved as a performer in her LP from this season, so waiting to see what happens.

Also, Medvedeva has lost her Biellmann. It's sad.

LOL I forgot again which one was which. But incredible that Lori was the one who packaged her SS display! Great way to highlight her strength at the Olympics.

Well, with this I think of skaters like Sasha Cohen. Not the best skating skills, still the most artistic skater of her era, and holds up very well no matter whom we compare her to. Technique can help artistry (it's not like you can put a non-dancer against a dancer and expect them to be equally artistic when it comes to dance), but it's not the only part of it, and there's a lot more to it. Not to mention, technically simpler pieces can be more artistic than the ones that are more difficult, in terms of expressing music and having good performance ability; plus as you grow older you lose some of your technical ability (when it comes to how flexible you are, for instance), but your own artistic vision grows (Kwan comes to mind here). Better technique CAN give you a greater range of motion and more confidence to your skating, allowing you to care more about peformance and expressing yourself better while doing the technical aspects, though (but here again skaters like Cohen, Kwan, and Lu Chen come to mind who never had a HUGE range of motion, or the best technique, or were at their best in their later years, or combinations of the three.)(sorry for lack of examples from men, I usually find ladies to be more artistic, the current era being an anomaly). It's too complicated to properly discuss it here, and there's a lot to it. But, yeah, I don't agree that artistry comes from technique, at least not solely; it's not that simple, IMO. "Understanding of the music" isn't a technical aspect.

(I notice so many grammatical errors in my post now. I should take more time to proofread.) I'm glad I changed your mind a little! He's not my favorite choreographer, but he does get too bad of a rap, IMO. Good to see we agree on Lori first (I want to insert her programs in a post, but she has too many of them. Let's just think about a lot of her programs for Kwan and Asada here ). I could easily imagine Dickson second because of his consistent work, I agree, and yes, his Tango for Yuna (especially for a junior, very rare) was wonderful. I can't access your links for Miyahara, but I think one of them would be Sayuri's theme? In terms of developing a skater, he's actually one of the best around, IMO. I would like to point out his work for Matt Savoie and Jeremy Abbott here, instead of Miyahara, though, especially Savoie who was a bit of an unknown quantity, but was very gifted. Too bad the USFSA usually goes for the more consistent skater (like Lysacek ). Very intricate, and "dimensional" like I mentioned, and very edgy and sophisticated music. His skaters shine with the SS and TR aspects of choreo, too. IDK why he's not mentioned by others, but for me I often get confused when I try to look up past skaters and see who choreographed their programs. For example, Yagudin's programs between 2000 to the 2002 worlds are all phenomenal (and I liked the Skate Canada 2002 SP very much too), and he was with TAT, but I often hear his program footwork was done by Morozov? IDK. Morozov (and let's just toss in TAT and her team here, I guess) did do Sasha Cohen SPs like Malaguena, and I love her Dark Eyes SP very much. TAT did some very good work with developing her skaters. I don't like her work with Asada for the most part, though. I am not sure 100% about ID and Pairs, because I haven't watched past ones too much. Zueva's work with VM, DW, and the Shibs I like very much, though, and she also worked with S/H. I still mostly consider Bourne and Buttle to be amateur talents, as I think their impulses are a little too on-the-nose, but not bad, although I like Bourne a lot more than Buttle whom I've found limited (but he can hide weaknesses very well, like with Zhou). I can get why they're popular because they're modern. For Bourne, I agree on Skyfall, but amongst her programs for Yuzuru, I actually far prefer Hope and Legacy to Seimei.

Jonathan Cassar.

To be fair, I think everyone's PCS is 10+ points inflated nowadays. Judges should start using the 2s and 3s at their disposal more. I don't agree with this anyway.

I had no idea she'd done G/G's Moonlight Sonata! I like quite a few instances in that program. I'm not a fan of her Nutcracker for Cohen, though (eta: ... Or most of her singles choreo)

I think Wilson gains the most points for quickly adapting and creating programs that fit early CoP standards extremely well. Right off the bat, he created this: 1. Sasha Cohen, Romeo and Juliet, 2006 Olympics LP Which I grant masterpiece status, and it's the best ladies' program under CoP. Practically everything there is perfect and fits the music. The next season, he created 2. Jeff Buttle, Ararat, 2007 Canada Nationals 3. Yuna Kim, The Lark Ascending, 2007 Worlds Buttle's program was very interesting, especially in how it builds right through the straight line step sequence and into the final jump. Buttle never performed it well (although this version I think he performed only thrice, but I never got to see 4CCs), but the choreography is masterful. Yuna's program is the next masterpiece he choreographed, and the second best ladies' program under CoP for me (one of the reasons Lori is first, BTW, is because the Mao has her Liebestraume next in the list). He latched on to her skating quality perfectly here, and the sense of a senior bursting out onto the scene is portrayed extremely well in this program. The next few seasons, I think most of his praise-worthy work is with Yuna, but nothing too of note when it comes to actual choreography, although Danse Macabre did allow her to perform extremely well. This is around where the CoP of the time was starting to worsen ladies' programs, with bad spiral sequence and footwork rules, too... until 2011. Here comes the next piece of note, for me: 4. Yuna Kim, Homage to Korea, 2011 Worlds Again here he shows quick adoption of the CoP rules of the time, by making a much simpler spiral sequence that fit the choreo very well, and good interpretation of the traditional Korean music through interesting arm positions through the program. I don't think it's a perfect program, skated only once in the season and in need of a lot of fine-tuning, but it shows flashes of brilliance. He didn't have a great showing in 2012 from what I can remember, but in 2013 he created two great programs, which is quite unusual since we crave for even one good program from this choreographer now. Those were: 5. Javier Fernandez, Charlie Chaplin, 2013 Europeans 6. Yuna Kim, Les Miserables, 2013 Worlds (I will not be acknowledging any of his work with Patrick Chan in this era) The program for Fernandez is great, a wonderful fit for his personality, and a great way to fit demanding tech content into the ever-more-annoying CoP rules, while still making it look very good. Kim's program isn't choregraphically brilliant, definitely packed all of her strengths into a big package, but it is absolutely perfect package for her, allowing her to give that legendary performance based practically off her own life story up until that point. I don't think Wilson did any great work for 2014 and 2015. In 2016, he again created a program that allowed a skater to give a great performance even if not with great choreo, this time for Javi at Worlds 2016, with Guys and Dolls (extremely annoying I can't find a video ). Then again for 2017 Worlds he gave us Patrick Chan's Journey. Since then, he has been stale. But I do think people tend to exaggerate how bad he is (probably because he is very in-demand, because there's very little fresh talent around), because he tends to recycle work (or so it seems), but I think it's slightly unfair in that regard. He had great programs, two masterpieces since the inception of the CoP (and the two best ladies programs under CoP, although they rank very, very, very highly in an overall scheme, too), and it wasn't even "oh, it's because he knows how to work with Yuna", because it was her first season with him. He adpated to the CoP rules extremely quickly, in fact, as shown with Cohen's program. It can be said that he usually takes a developed skater to make a good program, but he's had great programs for top skaters nonetheless which is what counts. Currently, though, he's in a bad rut: his program for Mihara were criticized as being "for Yuna", but the exhibitions he choregraphed for her and Yuzuru were uninspired too, just random pretty movement they are each known for. I do think his choreo is a little less "dimensional" or "dance-like" compared to Tom Dickson, and also I think Kurt Browning and Yuka Sato are more talented choreographers who hit it out of the ballpark when they actually do choreograph (very excited to see what Han Yan will do, since he worked with both!). But Dickson's body of work in terms of "great programs" to me is smaller, even though he's a more consistent choreographer than Wilson, and Browning and Sato rarely ever choreograph fully fledged programs, and they all too produce(d) their greatest works with specific skaters. Dickson makes all his skaters look good and I'd probably want to go to him in order to develop my skills (Dickson is third based off body of work); I can't that say about Wilson, but he does make the ones he gels with look good, too, and when Wilson hits it out of the park, he REALLY hits it out of the park, and he's had a greater body of work than the other three I mentioned here, for me. I think body of work overall matters BTW, because I'd LOVE to otherwise say that Karen Chen is the best choreographer ever, given her On Golden Pond. ETA: That said, it might be difficult to compare choreography of newer talents (mostly thinking about Bourne and Buttle, and maybe Richaud if he rises) to the ones who've been around for a while, especially Wilson who got to experience making choreo with the earliest of CoP rules, and the rules are far tighter and far more weighed down now, and Wilson is quite uninspired currently. So another criteria (which I mostly haven't considered, going based off bodies of work) is to see who can STILL make their skaters look good while navigating through all the level requirements. But even in that regard, Wilson has recent work with Chan and Fernandez, as noted.

Origin was able to present him better. Otonal's interpretation is far airier than what it should be, especially in the step sequence, which, while technically brilliant, doesn't respect the weighed-down, yet fulfilling, quality of the music at that point, and his skating is a little too "perfect" there. Weir's Otonal had it down pat.