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Kurt Browning, the star of Stars for so long, brings his greatest hits to Toronto on his farewell tour
Browning found his happy place as a performer and fans never fell out of love with him
| Source: |
Toronto Star |
| Date: |
April 27, 2023 |
| Author: |
Rosie DiManno |
Kurt Browning can't positively remember the last time he turned a quad
jump. Probably in 2008. But everyone remembers the first time he
landed it cleanly in competition - a quad toe at the 1988 world figure
skating championships - because it was the first time anyone
did.
The triple Axel that was arguably Browning's most sublime jump, well,
that one disappeared quite a while back also. "I tried it a few times
maybe six or seven years ago. It hurt."
These days, Browning's only remaining performance three-rotation jump
is the homely triple toe. "Every once in a while I try a Sal or, on a
dare, a loop." He laughs. "My old warm-up jumps."
The four-time world champion from an era of Canadian supremacy in
men's skating - Brian Orser to Browning to Elvis Stojko to Patrick
Chan - has been shedding bits of his skating repertoire for decades,
after imbuing the sport with profound technical skill and creative
artistry, often with a dollop of humour. Yet his sheer entertainment
éclat has never withered. He is the consummate showman. By his own
estimation, a better pro performer than an amateur competitor, for all
the accolades and triumphs accrued in his career.
But now, with his 57th birthday looming, that part of his life - a
signature 30-year headlining affiliation with Stars on Ice - is about
to end, too. When the Stars tour comes through Toronto, May 5 at
Scotiabank Arena, it will be Browning's swan song to the city where he
has long resided.
"Considering all the golds, I don't look at my career as an amateur
and think, great skate after great skate. I just wasn't that kind of
competitor. I was a much better show skater. As successful as my
amateur career was, I think I was a much better performer. I'm looking
at my potential back then versus what I did. The bulk of my work as an
amateur, it just had too many mistakes for me to be an iconic amateur
competitor. Like, I wouldn't choose me if I was on a panel."
An amateur career which, to his eternal regret, never included Olympic
gold. "Anybody who gets that close to the top podium at the Olympics
and they say it didn't matter? Ah, come on." In three Olympics, twice
favoured for title chops, Browning finished eighth, sixth, then fifth
at Lillehammer in 1994. What many never knew is that he had told
family and Skate Canada he intended to retire before those Games,
satisfied he was leaving Canadian figure skating in good hands with
the emergence of Stojko. And he was itching to turn pro. Ultimately,
he hung in for Lillehammer.
For Albertville, Browning was suffering with a bad back, improperly
trained to navigate injury. "My dad said, ‘You're going into a
gunfight with a knife.' I wasn't prepared. And then Lillehammer, I
wasn't in the right frame of mind. I didn't go in there with a killer
instinct.''
Show performance, that’s where Browning found his true happy place,
which explains his longevity in that genre. Fans never fell out of
love with him and in return, down through these many years, he’s given
them two solo turns and participated in every ensemble number in every
Stars tour.
Why has he endured in audience appreciation while others, with at
least equal luminosity, have faded from view? What does he bring that
allows him to stack up so well against recent hotshots who toss off
much bigger jumping tricks, quads six ways from Sunday?
"The same things I would like to think I saw in Scott Hamilton when I
was the young hotshot, which I couldn’t touch," says Browning,
referring to the American crackerjack around whom Stars was basically
built. "And that was a relationship with the audience. The trust that
ticket-buyers had in Scott. I looked at that, even as a young man, and
I thought, 'I want that some day.' And I worked really hard to try to
create that kind of trust with the skating fans of Stars and skating
fans in general.
"There is a relationship that exists over time I feel is really
strong."
Besides, if we're talking jumping prowess eroded, most fans can't
distinguish between a triple toe and a triple Axel, much less the
torque blur between a triple and a quad. "They're more impressed with
the speed going in, the speed coming out. They like to feel that the
jump came out of nowhere. That long buildup is also exciting. But I
haven't done it for this long without recreating the wheel - looking
in the mirror and going what this time?"
What exemplified the Kurt oeuvre was memorably choreographed programs
delivered with chutzpah: Singing in the Rain, where he skated with an
umbrella; Casablanca, with a pause for an imagine puff on a cigarette,
Humphrey Bogart-style; and Bonzo's Montreux, to Led Zeppelin. Those
latter two are his own favourites. All the costumes are still stored
at his midtown home, which he shares with wife Alissa Czisny, the
two-time U.S. national champion he married last summer.
Czisny has choreographed one of Browning's two new solo programs for
the Stars tour, to "Please Forgive Me," by British singer-songwriter
David Gray. "It's got nothing to do with my last year of Stars,"
Browning says. "It's got no message. We literally just really loved
this song. And I like the pacing of it. This song has space for me to
just take my time. It's about the long hug."
With the audience.
The other program, which Browning choreographed, is a pastiche of
evocative bits culled from his most beloved routines, performed
fittingly enough to The Who's "Who Are You?" He scoured YouTube to
check out the old Kurt. "I got this idea to steal little tidbits, a
step here, a glide there, 10 whole seconds from Brick House, shtick
from The Clown. The costumes and memories that go with those skates
was trying to fit a bit of a square peg into a round hole.
"It's like a photo album of choreographed moves." That should
certainly resonate with audiences.
Featured as well is a duet with three-time world champion Stojko, with
both skaters mic'd, talking to each other and the crowd.
"Like two old guys having fun," Browning says. "We wanted to
acknowledge our friendship over the years but also what we brought to
the sport. It's a goodbye. I wanted to add this as a gift to our fans
- one more time."
Browning's career has spanned several reinventions, from competitive
skater to choreographer to TV commentator. He has no interest in
coaching but intends to continue in one-off shows, charitable events,
and inspiring young skaters as a guest mentor.
He didn't want his career to end with the COVID pause that darkened
all sports and the Stars tour for a while. A career that began at a
newly covered rink in the foothills of Alberta, half a century ago,
when his mom put him in a figure skating club essentially to boost his
skating skills as a kidlet hockey player.
"I just never quit it."
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