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Back flip back in figure skating legend Browning's repertoire for Stars on Ice
| Source: |
Calgary Herald |
| Date: |
May 14, 2015 |
| Author: |
Jeff MacKinnon |
Kurt Browning figures he last did a back flip 20 years ago, which
would have put him in his late 20s.
He has to flip the clock back, then, at the Scotiabank Saddledome on
Sunday when he performs at Stars On Ice because he's recreating a
routine of his skating idol Scott Hamilton, which ended with
one.
"I went back to the drawing board and worked hard and got my back flip
back," Browning said. "After 20 years of not doing it at the age of 48
I'm doing back flips again, which technically makes me insane.
"I never dreamed I would ever do it again."
The pride of Caroline, Alta., who celebrates a birthday on June 18,
makes essentially his annual skating trip to his home province this
week to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Canadian tour. The
Calgary performance has a 4 p.m. start on Sunday.
Browning has been part of every tour. While promoting it earlier this
week he suggested to one reporter that he had skated in around 800
Stars on Ice shows in both Canada and the United States, where it was
founded in 1986 originally to showcase Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic
champion.
Skating in Alberta (including Edmonton's Rexall Place on Saturday)
remains a treasured experience for Browning, who won four world titles
during his storied career.
"I try not to make it mean anything so that I just go out there and
focus on the moment, but it does," he said. "I'm more nervous, I'm
more excited and I don't get to skate in front of my friends and
family from Alberta very often — in fact it's usually just once a
year.
"So, I'm pretty fired up for those shows."
Browning will be joined at the Dome by Canada's biggest figure skating
stars, including 2010 Olympic ice dance champions Tessa Virtue and
Scott Moir, 2014 Olympic silver medallist Patrick Chan, newly-crowned
world pairs champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford and world
silver-medal winning ice dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje. Also
appearing are Olympic bronze medallists Joannie Rochette (2010) and
Jeffrey Buttle (2006), three-time United States champion Ashley Wagner
and 2011 Canadian men's silver medallist Shawn Sawyer.
Even with all those stars on ice, it is Browning's show, though. He
became the director and choreographer for the tour in 2014 and he's
put his vision on the ice again in 2015, highlighted by a
20-minute-long group during the second half that has caught some of
the audience off-guard.
"Some people are out there on Twitter saying: 'woah, didn't expect
that' and they don't know quite how to handle it," Browning
said.
"Other people are loving the change-up and loving the challenge. They
have to sit there and try and figure out the story and follow the
storyline and the symbolism and absolutely love it.
"Ironically, I'm off the ice during a quick-change and I never get to
see it."
Browning's solo number is one that he used to watch Hamilton perform
when Browning was among the young stars. He'd sit on a stool at the
end of the rink with the rest of the cast as they used to do and watch
Hamilton skate to One For My Baby, the Frank Sinatra tune.
"I would sit on that stool 20 years younger or whatever it was and say
to myself 'some day I want this moment; I want to have the control of
the audience that he has and have the lineage he has'. I looked up to
him a lot.
"When I started to look for the moment that I felt I hopefully had
earned after 25 years I realized that I wanted that exact
moment."
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