Thank you for impressions and everything!
Stéphane looked healthy in Stockholm
I think it's a really good quality quad he did there in the end of show.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0ivd299MUU&feature=youtu.beSome my impressions too as I love to read people's personal thoughts.
Art on Ice differs every year from the previous one’s and of course it’s very good! AOI is maybe not so much only a skating show and that’s the makers goal too. This year I felt really good unity with all the multi-dimensionality what this so has: musicians, skaters, dancers, lightshow, tricks, effects, acrobats. I think fire artists were extremely high quality. They added some kind of dignity and adrenaline with their really dangerous-looking fire effects.
I liked some theatrical numbers they had. One was Florent Amodio’s erotic number with a dancer girl. The other was maybe one of the highlights of the show. Khatia Buniatishvili was playing baroque piano music, it supposed to be night, one of the balls transformed to the moon, Pechalat-Bourzat, Nathalie wearing a mask.And then to this beautiful, melancholic music Nathalie and Fabian danced, Nathalie wearing a mask, like ghosts from the old times, like personages from Verlaine’s poems or Racine’s tragedies.
Then there was “drumming and skating contest” where two great drummers, Florent Amodio, Kurt Browning, break dancer and some group skaters members did a funny contest. Of course Kurt and Florent fitted very well to this image.
Musicians were ok too. Even when I like Hurts (not crazy but like) they were good for the background. LOL And Khatia Buniatishvili was very good! In the beginning I hesitated how a classical pianist would fit in such show.
Now skaters. Kurt Browning is a legend and he is a great acter as well. He surely has the fastest legs and best footwork in the world! In Helsinki he didn’t have yet good jumps. In Stockholm there was alredy a triple jump! Amazing in his age.
Volosozhar-Trankov and Savchenko-Szolkowy are both such amazing pairs, just breathtaking ! It’s a joy and honour to get to watch them! I noticed was that Aliona and Robin were all the time so happy. Just smiling and shining. Smiling to each other, relaxed and audience liked them a lot! They got biggest applauses.
Sarah Meier is always so lovely. For me she is like perfect example of lady skater. Everything - how she looks, her dresses, how she moves. But she jumps mostly only 2 axel. Joannie Rochette looked like mermaid with her loose hair and sparkling bodysuit. Jumpswise she is absolutely amazing too. I liked Florent Amodio this year more than last year. This year there wasn’t such sexy-latin-shirtless programs overdose. I think his jumps improved show by show. What I saw in Helsinki and Stockholm, was already very ok.
In Helsinki they had also Laura Lepistö. She has the same elegance and refinement, she is a beautiful skater. Now she unfortunately don’t have much jumps. But she does many other things, not only skating.
Alexander Majorov in Stockholm ha extremely entertaining program on the movie “The Mask”, he had face painted green and yellow suit and all! This season has been very successful for him and it’s great Sweden has such promising skater. Viktoria Helgesson was beautiful as always, wearing silver 30ties style dress.
There were all these amazing skaters but anyway when Stéphane stepped in the ice, it was clear that now someone comes who owns that all. His Grieg is even more ballet than any other his routine before. His classical ballet hands are getting more and more perfect, his movements are extremely clean, very polished. And his Hurts “Water” program was immediately my favourite when I saw it first time in a video. Of course it stunned even more live. He always follows song’s lyrics and it he always creates his own magical atmosphere while skating.
There was very beautifully written about this program in Stéphane’s lambiel_ru society. It totally expresses all what I think and felt too.
“I loved his underwater journey, how flow picked him up and carried away, fishes were swimming, how he got lost in seaweed, how he looked up, over the water whether the sun is shining or is it stormy, how he sank to the bottom.
How he got into a whirlpool and began to sink and pressed then his hands to the body and flew up.
Water carried him to the seashore and left lying on the sand. He held out like Ichtyander, who lost his element, exhausted but not able to live without the water.”