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Stars bring Olympic sheen to ice
Vancouver medallists and Browning lead stellar cast at Halifax show
| Source: |
Halifax Herald |
| Date: |
April 23, 2010 |
| Author: |
Andrea Nemetz |
The cast of Stars on Ice wrapped up the opening show of its
cross-country tour Thursday grooving to I’ve Got the Music in
Me.
But there was no need to prove the point — for two hours, some of the
top skaters in the world had proved they could take the beat, whether
it was rock, jazz, Broadway or dance, and render magic on the Halifax
Metro Centre ice.
The 20th-anniversary show featured an all-Canadian cast for what might
be the first time in Stars on Ice history. It was a love-in for
longtime favourites like four-time world champion Kurt Browning,
Olympic gold medallist pairs skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier,
two-time world silver medal ice dancers Marie-France Dubreuil and
Patrice Lauzon, and 2008 world champion Jeffrey Buttle.
The reigning Olympic and world champion ice dancers Tessa Virtue and
Scott Moir, Olympic bronze medallist Joannie Rochette, and Cynthia
Phaneuf, fresh off a career-high fifth-place finish at the world
championships in March, added competitive glamour, while New Brunswick
showman Shawn Sawyer, a three-time Canadian bronze medallist, earned a
place in fans’ hearts with his trademark backflips, unbelievable
flexibility and precision dance moves.
Virtue and Moir, reprising their comic Olympic exhibition program,
were the first to turn the rink into a dance floor.
Virtue, in a simple black scoop-necked leotard and traditional ballet
tutu, was introduced as an Olympic champion and proceeded to pirouette
and dance as if en pointe, with arms elegantly extended above her
head, to delicate classical music, while a mock outraged Moir, clad in
a red hockey jersey and jeans, leapt and spun in a satire of a
traditional dancer.
Grabbing a black tuque and the audience’s attention, Moir switched the
mood to funky dance club — with Virtue taking her turn in faux outrage
before revving up the crowd as they boogied together to C+C Music
Factory’s Gonna Make You Sweat.
Buttle kept the crowd rocking with an inspired program set to the
Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil, a perfect facsimile of Mick
Jagger as he strutted across the ice or thrust both arms in the air
between jumps and gorgeous combination spins, with the crowd clapping
along in delight.
Husband and wife Dubreuil and Lauzon steamed up the joint with a
sensual program set to Nina Simone’s Do I Move You, which featured
lovely lifts, seamlessly transitioning from shoulders to hips to the
ice, where they skated as one before ending in a romantic kiss.
It set up the first act finale, Rock the Runway, a disco/dance medley
with the girls in above-the-knee red suede boots, black, spangled,
high-neck, backless minidresses, hoop earrings and sunglasses, and the
guys in black with red patent belts and red-striped accented shirts
and eye patches.
The fabulous choreography by Cindy Stuart and Renee Roca was fun and
funny, with the guys bouncing off each other, hip-checking and
slapping hands, and the girls assuming attitude to spare as they
strutted to Pink’s So What before the whole gang merrily got its
groove on to the Black Eyed Peas’ I Got A Feeling.
Sale and Pelletier’s ode to Michael and Janet Jackson, complete with
Thriller-style dance moves, was pure funk delight, accented with
gasp-inducing pairs moves, including one in which Pelletier spun
rapidly, holding Sale by one foot while she extended her leg into a
perfect split, then lifted her to put both feet around his neck and
flung her about at dizzying speed. The black floor with white ovals
was the perfect backdrop.
And the psychedelic magenta and yellow square lighting that covered
the rink accented perfectly Rochette’s ’60s-inspired number to Shirley
Bassey’s History Repeating. Rochette let the music take over as she
shimmied and shook and threw in a trio of triples, looking relaxed and
happy, tossing her hair and doing the Twist.
Browning awed the crowd after explaining that "Frank Sinatra did it
his way, my way is in hockey skates." He did an entire program to Ol’
Blue Eyes’ Luck Be A Lady Tonight while wearing hockey skates, an
amazing feat that included axels, flying footwork and even balancing
on his heels with his legs outstretched as he glided across the ice,
earning gasps and applause.
Virtue and Moir cast the final spell, enchanting the audience with
Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, their long program this season that earned
them Olympic and world gold. Every move was as if by one skater, and
when Virtue stood on one leg on Moir’s back, then flipped over to land
in his outstretched arm, not a beat of the music was missed.
It allowed all in the audience to bask in their Olympic victory one
more time.
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