Dancing on Ice

Kristi Yamaguchi and other Olympic skaters show the Sovereign Bank Arena audience it’s all about style, manner, grace and flow.

By: Daniel Shearer

"My coach had always said there’s no secret to success – it’s hard work," says Olympic Gold Medalist Kristi Yamaguchi, currently touring with Stars on Ice.

     Sometimes blood, sweat and years of practice are
not enough. With everything riding on a four-minute routine, a rut in the ice,
even a stray sequin, can mean the difference between success and failure in competitive
figure-skating.
   "You just prepare yourself as much as you can," says Olympic
Gold Medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. "In skating, it’s almost better to perform on
automatic pilot, turn your mind off to outside distractions. As long as you’ve
prepared, and obviously certain skaters have a better competitive instinct than
others, you’ve just got to go out there and do it when it counts."
   Although Ms. Yamaguchi had been skating since age 6, the Olympics
didn’t become part of her dreams until her early teens. Rising at 4 a.m. for five-
and six-hour morning practice sessions before school, followed by afternoon sessions
with her partner, Rudy Galindo, she quickly climbed the amateur ranks, clinching
the World Junior Championship in 1988, and acing the United States Pair Championships
in 1989 and 1990. During those years, she also became one of the first American
women to simultaneously compete in solo and pairs events.
   Then, in 1991, after her decision to concentrate on singles
skating, she won the World Championship, and a Gold Medal at the Olympics in Albertville,
France, in 1992, making her the first American to win the medal since Dorothy
Hamill in 1976. Also in ’92, she won her second World Championship in Oakland,
Calif.
   Ms. Yamaguchi turned pro in 1993 and is skating with Smuckers
Stars on Ice, a theatrically inspired tour that makes stops in 60 cities this
year, including a date at Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, Feb. 19, and a show
at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia Feb. 20.

Canadian pair skaters Jamie Salé and David Pelletier.

   "I had the option to go back (to the Olympics) in ’94, but I
did not," Ms. Yamaguchi says. "It was difficult. I waited to the last minute for
the cut-off date, but I was really happy with what I was doing in the professional
world, so it felt right to continue to move on."
   Ms. Yamaguchi has skated with Stars on Ice every year
since then, with the exception of last year, when she and her husband, NHL hockey
player Bret Hedican, had a daughter, Keara. Ms. Yamaguchi and Olympic Silver Medalist
and World Professional Champion Paul Wylie will perform as special guests in Philadelphia
and Trenton, two of 10 such dates on the tour for Ms. Yamaguchi.
   The show also will feature 2002 Olympic Gold Medalist Alexei
Yagudin, World Champion and six-time U.S. National Champion Todd Eldredge, World
Champion Yuka Sato, Silver Medalists and three-time U.S. National Pair Champions
Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, and World Bronze Medalists and three-time U.S. National
Pair Champions Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman.
   Canadian skaters Jamie Salé and David Pelletier also
will perform, along with Russian skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze,
the pair skating teams awarded gold medals after the 2002 Olympics. The wake from
that controversial decision, which emerged after scores were called into question,
continues to rock the skating community.
   Stars on Ice Director Christopher Dean, who won the 1984 Olympic
Pair Skating Medal after a legendary routine in Sarajevo with Jane Torvill, says
the performances of the Russians and Canadians in the show demonstrates that the
controversy stemmed from the judging and the policies of the International Skating
Union, and not with the skaters themselves.

Russian pair skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze.

   "These two teams," Mr. Dean says, "you wouldn’t believe how
much fun they have together on the ice, and how they work together. It’s been
a really pleasurable experience."
   Mr. Dean says the 2002 pair-skating decision has had a lasting
impact on the skating world "in the sense of how people view it, what they think
about it, and that it shows that it’s obviously fallible, and it was visibly fallible."
   "Now the ISU is trying to rectify that by changing the way that
the scoring system is marked," he says, "so it’s going through quite a bit of
upheaval and trying to evolve into a better system."
   For this year’s Stars on Ice, Mr. Dean envisioned a series of
performances thematically linked to time.
   "Time is everything," he says. "That’s been our motto as the
show has been constructed. Those four minutes, or four and a half minutes, depending
on whether you’re a male free skater or an ice dancer, could mean everything,
or it could mean everything is gone. It sounds extreme, but it really does come
down to that when you’re competing at that high level.
   "The thing about time is that it always seems to be one of two
things. When you’re fully trained and feel in control of everything, you feel
that you’re ahead of it, you’re thinking ahead and everything is complete. I don’t
want to say it’s in slow motion, but it’s well within your capabilities. If, on
the other hand, things aren’t going so well, time seems to be flying by and you’re
behind it all the time, always seemingly chasing."
   Mr. Dean opens the show with an ensemble skate set to "Sunrise,"
from Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite, and transitions to Kyoko
Ina and John Zimmerman skating to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s "Hey Little Sister," Jamie
Salé and David Pelletier moving to Norah Jones’ "Come Away with Me," and
Ms. Yamaguchi skating to Céline Dion’s "Have You Ever Been in Love."
   "We’ve taken snapshots of time," says Mr. Dean, who lives in
Colorado Springs, Colo., with his wife, skater Jill Trenary. "We’ve also tried
to make it witty and poignant. At one point, we use one of the skaters as a metronome.
He transitions one set of skaters to the next, so he’s out as one set’s finished,
and then the metronome sound is the same tempo that they’ve just finished skating.
   "Then another skater comes out, stops the metronome, moves the
weight and starts it again at her tempo. Everybody has different tempos, the way
they live, the way they skate, the way they move. We think time is visually interesting
and fun, but you can read further into it if you want to."
   The show shifts gears at the end of Act I with a routine involving
brooms, allowing the skaters to do breathtaking flips and suspensions choreographed
to a drum and bass soundtrack. Mr. Dean cites a broad range of influences in his
choreography, from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to contemporary ballet.
   "(Astaire and Rogers) were wonderful," he says, "not just about
what they did, but just their style and manner, gracefulness and flow, because
as they danced they looked like they were floating, even skating."
   Once a show hits the ice, Mr. Dean says performers’ mindset
plays an all-important role.
   "Before you skate," he says, "a lot of people, and certainly
myself, try to visualize it, and you visualize it in the positive. You go through
in your head what you’ve done hundreds of times. But that’s how you visualize
it because out of all the performances that I’ve skated, whenever I’ve thought
about something that could happen, invariably it will happen. By experience, you
think in the positive."
Stars on Ice visits Sovereign Bank Arena, 550 S. Broad St., Trenton, Feb. 19,
7 p.m. Tickets cost $26-$81. For tickets, call (609) 520-8383. For information,
call (609) 656-3200. On the Web: sovereignbankarena.com;
and the Wachovia Center, 3601 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, Feb. 20, 7:30 p.m. Tickets
cost $27-$100. For tickets and information, call (215) 336-3600. On the Web: www.comcast-spectacor.com.
Stars on Ice on the Web: www.starsonice.com