Here's where we are starting off:
Another song often swept up in the realm of Swan Lake/Black Swan is "The Swan" by Camille Saint-Saens. "The Swan" is a piece from Saint-Saens' larger work, "The Carnival of the Animals". Another fun fact (bear with me, this ties in with the song, I swear!): When I was in 5th grade, I was chosen along with 5 other classmates from my music class to participate in the district-wide Music Memory Contest. We heard a piece of classical music and had to name the title and composer. Our school won the third place trophy!
So, how does this tie in? Well, "The Swan" by Camille Saint-Saens was one of the songs.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled skating post...
Here, we have 3 programs, in chronological order, or various renditions of "The Swan". You can see the line of influence from one program to the next. Check this out!
First, we have Oksana Baiul's "Dying Swan", her exhibition program from the 1994 Olympic season:
Just absolutely beautiful, exquisite, and amazing. True art and balletic beauty. Her skating is so quiet, and the landing on her jumps so soft.
Next, we have Johnny Weir's short program to "The Swan" at the 2006 Olympics. You can see some of Oksana's influence in his program...
Bonus scene: they scan over Johnny's Angels in the audience. This costume is amazing! No one can touch Johnny in the costumes department, that's for sure. In this program, he combines a strong technical program with some beautiful and amazing artistry, creating a style that is all his own.
He even has one glove to resemble a beak! I have heard that Jon Heder's character in "Blades of Glory", Jimmy MacElroy, was created after Johnny Weir. Check this out:
Yes, it is a spoof, but it is hilarious. One of my favorite movies!
And after that diversion, we have a third program to show in this group. It is Yuzuru Hanyu's exhibition to "Notte Stellata" from the 2016/2017 season. You can see some of Johnny's influence in this program...
Yuzuru is a wonderful and amazing skater. This exhibition shows a lot of his artistic sensibilities. He can also throw down quads like it's nothing. Just a really awesome skater! The vocals are a nice addition to the music, and he has that layback Ina Bauer in just the perfect spot! On a more superficial note, if anyone can come close to rivaling Johnny in costumes, it is definitely Yuzu!
I would be remiss if I did not include the beautiful performance of this young lady, Ms. Alissa Czisny:
She's such a lovely and elegant skater, and I'm sad that she never got a chance at the Olympics, despite her decorated record. I really like her skating style, very quiet and graceful.
And now, to close out "The Swan" performances, I have a really special one for you: This one is from a 2007 Holiday show at Emerald Lake in New Hampshire. Here's Vitaliy Opekan:
This performance is amazing, and the scenery is just beautiful. I have lived in the southern US for most of my life, and have never skated outside. It is a dream of mine to do so one day, especially at the Rockefeller Center in New York City. They do have a little outdoor rink where I live in Huntsville, Alabama around the holidays, but most of the time it's too warm for all the ice to stay solid. I would only want to go if it's below freezing outside, but then no one wants to go...what's up with that? Anyway, all the snow and trees around the lake just look so magical to me. And the decorations....Christmas is my favorite holiday so I am loving all of this!
If any of you have ever skated on a frozen lake, I would love to hear about it!
Now, on to some more cool stuff!
Swan Lake and Black Swan have inspired creative skating in other sub-genres of figure skating:
The first I'm going to show you is the often forgotten art of roller figure skating:
I figure skate on ice, and I have to tell you; this looks hard as hell. Some people find roller skating easier, but I have always found ice skating to be easier. You do have to have better balance for ice skating, but to me, roller skates are so heavy. It's a burden just to do the simplest of things. But then again, I have only used rentals. For what it's worth, I can't do much on rental ice skates either. What I fear in roller figure skating is falling. When falling on the ice, it can hurt, but most of the time there's a little bit of a slide when you fall. That is not the case in roller skating!
Next, we have the Russian synchro team Spartak-Junost performing their rendition of Swan Lake. If you haven't seen synchro, it is really beautiful to watch:
This is a genre I have participated in for a brief period of time. I was on our synchro team for the Christmas show back in 2014. I'm not sure if I will do it again, but I'm not ruling it out either. It is challenging (in good and bad ways) to work with a team in a sport that is individually driven. Seeing synchro on an elite level such as Spartak-Junost or The Haydenettes is fascinating. I think the part of the sychro aesthetic that I enjoy is that it looks like a marching band on ice.
For the final artistic rendition, here's a show I really want to see live. It's Swan Lake on Ice, performed by the Imperial Ice Stars:
This is so dramatic and captivating. It takes all the theatrical aspects of the ballet and puts it on ice. You will even see some ballet dancing mixed in with the skating. There's a lot of really cool effects, like the ring of fire, the flying, and the blacklighting.
Now, on to some more funny renditions...
You will probably recall the Mario and Sonic Wii games they kept showing during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Well, they did a figure skating program to Swan Lake! It is performed by Amy, the female hedgehog in Sonic. Here it is.
Great job Amy!
This next one is an amusing and very impressive performance by Victor Baryshevtsev:
Victor is a very decorated skater in multiple disciplines. He was on the hockey team for the USSR in the late 80s, and now coaches hockey skating techniques in the US. He also had some success in figure skating, playing Gaston in Beauty and the Beast for Disney on Ice. He merges both types of skating here, and the results are pretty damn impressive. I'm amazed at the things he can do in hockey skates, like that camel spin and the double axel! The blades on hockey skates do not have edges like figure skates, so I have no clue how he did that. All the falling and swimming near the end is great!!!
The program I have saved for last is truly special. It also scares the crap out of me a vast majority of the time. Alexei Polishuk and Vladimir Besedin combine figure skating with lots of acrobatic tricks. There's also a lot of blade grabbing and standing on each other, and other close calls with the blades. That's the part that makes me nervous. Anyway, they made this entertaining, and they are geniuses. Also, no one got hurt 😥.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post! I'm going to keep writing the warhorse posts, but I have some additional ideas I'm really excited to share with you! Stay tuned, and I'll be writing again soon!
Autumn at Icy Trails ⛸
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