Stars On Ice Without Torville and Dean

[Mike N. Ding]

Does anyone know the story of why Torville and Dean dropped out of
Stars On Ice at the last minute? I attended the Seattle show last
night and the program had them listed, but another ice dance team took
their place. They were also conspicuously missing from the televised
showing of Stars On Ice.

Thanks,

Mike
"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Dingacci, Seattle, WA (mailto:mike...@pobox.com)

[Revjoelle]

>Does anyone know the story of why Torville and Dean dropped out of Stars On
Ice at the last minute?

They didn't drop out at the last minute. They are not scheduled to join the
tour until Feb 25--and Kat Witt will leave the tour.

There's been plenty of publicity about this--don't know what the program
said...they might have their picture in there so they can sell the same program

.> They were also conspicuously missing from the televised

>showing of Stars On Ice.
>

Perhaps that should have been your first clue ;-)

Joelle

"Life is an adventure...it's not meant to be easy and I learned its not
supposed to be fair. It's what you make of it, where you take it, how you deal
with it."

Scott Hamilton

[tndl...@hotmail.com]

In article <68nj9i$8...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,

mike_*nospam*_di...@pobox.com (Mike N. Ding) wrote:
>
> Does anyone know the story of why Torville and Dean dropped out of

> Stars On Ice at the last minute? I attended the Seattle show last
> night and the program had them listed, but another ice dance team took

> their place. They were also conspicuously missing from the televised

> showing of Stars On Ice.

Well, contrary to popular opinion, SOI isn't the only ice show on the
planet, T&D are not in SOI right now as they are currently touring the UK
with their own new multi-million pound production, Ice Adventures. I've
seen it twice, here's what I thought.

Firstly, it’s not FTM and it’s not SOI. It’s pretty different, as you’d
expect from T&D I guess. So far, I’ve seen Ice Adventures twice at the
NEC, which was a pretty good set up, I think the arena held about 6,000
and on the opening night (Tues 16th Dec) all those seats were taken. I’m
not that good at writing up what I think about something, and certainly
not that good at watching T&D live. I just cannot get used to not being
able to rewind them when I see a move that caught my eye! Before the show
I had been wondering about the arena and had noticed these weird posters
about a dangerous Yeti called Roger. I wasn’t sure if they were to do
with T&D or left over from some other show.

As is the way with T&D shows, it started late on both occasions. This was
fine though as it gave you a chance to look at the impressive,
complicated set up of wires and props that were overhanging the rink.
Although having to repeatedly listen to “Simply Having a Wonderful
Christmas Time” etc, etc, was not an experience I would rush to repeat! A
word about the audience here, it’s no secret that the bulk of T&D UK
audiences can tend to be older rather than younger, but I thought this
was taking that idea to new extremes. OK, so the UK has an ageing
population, but really, where do they find them all? I wonder whether the
promoters have a deal with local old folks homes or something. As an 18
year old fan, I felt really out of place.

The show starts with a large silver alarm clock ticking away on the ice.
At which point, out pops Roger the Yeti, in large furry costume, skating
over to the alarm clock that has by now gone off. Interestingly enough
the clock is set to the time the show starts. He carries the clock off,
backstage with him. Not quite sure, what it’s all about, but the Yeti was
cute!

Ice Adventures is split into four main stories, the first of which is
Winter Express, and that’s what arrives after the Yeti has departed. The
first thing that appears is a shaft of light from the entrance and slowly
but surely a train appears there. It’s at this point you start to realise
how good the surround sound system installed in the arena is, far
superior to any other I’ve heard. The train appears with a bright light,
looking positively menacing, whilst the lighting beams down images of
rail tracks onto the ice. So, it’s a little bit of a change of mood when
the train moves out onto the ice followed by the company skating behind,
carrying their luggage. They wave at the audience, inviting a bit of
applause, they didn’t get that much.

At some point around here we have an entrance from company comedian, Lee
Cornes. (For UK people, he’s the Science Teacher from Grange Hill. Mr
Hankin meets T&D - cool!!!) He’s dressed smartly in a suit, carrying a
bouquet of flowers, as he moves out onto the ice professing his love for
Jayne. He is removed by a security guard, but his appearance is a
recurring theme throughout the show, which I enjoyed. Nice touch.

After more skating from the company in Winter Express we have the arrival
of Jayne onto the ice. Dressed in a maroon colour two-piece, she is
skating along with the rest of the company and looks like she’s trying to
catch someone’s attention. I couldn’t see whose it was though. A nice
spin to finish this section from Jayne. Next, Chris is arriving at the
station. He’s never content to make a more subtle entrance, he has to
backward roll over a large luggage trunk, doesn’t he! Anyway he is
dressed in very nicely tailored, most gorgeous, maroon suit. Chris is
standing at the station, reading his paper, whilst Jayne gets an eye full
of him and attempts to attract his attention. Chris is having none of it,
he continues with his paper, but Jayne’s teasing eventually gets to him,
and he’s off with her skating the “It Takes Two (To Shift A Trunk)
Tango”. This is great, I happen to love Tangos anyway, and one or two
moves reminded me of D&Vs excellent Tango from last season. Eat that,
Pash & Splatov! The moves are all very tight, very sharp, and very
precise as you’d expect from a Tango of this nature. The outcome is Jayne
succeeds in getting the full attention of Chris. I did enjoy the dance
lot, although they've done others that I have liked better.

Next up we have the arrival of a group of kids and their school master at
the station, and also the rather amusing appearance of two rival dogs,
these really made me laugh, I want one! ;-)X The great thing about this
is that T&D are on the ice so much, you can choose to watch their company
antics, rather than the other skaters. Throughout more company skating
Jayne and Chris sit together chatting on a luggage trunk. I wonder what
they’re talking about. Probably “Hey, Chris, first one to spot an
audience member under 75 wins!”

We have a nice waltz from T&D, which is followed by a clever, amusing
sequence where the muffled train announcer (I’m sure this will be of
great amusement to all Brits, I’m not sure what US train announcers are
like) keeps getting the platform wrong and they end up at the wrong
platform. When the train comes it zooms past! So they dismantle the train
and using the luggage, somehow make a bus (I missed that bit!) and drive
off in that instead. Cutesy ending to a nice, but not that over exciting
for an opening piece. I felt this was the weakest section in the show,
not that there was anything bad about it, there wasn’t at all, it’s just
the other sections were even better!

Between the different acts we have comedy from Lee Cornes and Martin
Smith. They are both trying their hand at ice fishing, Martin is the
using traditional methods, whereas Lee has gone for the electronic gadget
and quad bike approach. Martin has this really funny hood, when he walked
on wearing it, I thought it was so funny, he really has a talent for
comedy. There were a lot of good jokes in here, for example, Martin gets
out a little picnic-style chair, but Lee always has to gone better so he
uses his mobile phone to order a helicopter to arrive and drop an
inflatable seat for him. It’s funnier than it sounds, OK? ;-) X Lots of
nice touches, I felt the audience were incredibly slow on a lot of these
jokes. I don’t know if they just didn’t get it, or what the problem was.

The comedy sketch ends with Lee falling down a hole in the ice (lots of
top lighting effects there) and into the sea, which cleverly brings us
onto the next section, Mysteries of the Deep. With music by Art of Noise
and Penguin Cafe Orchestra, this is a pretty interesting lot of dancing.
However, I thought the giant fish that skated out to a hook at the
opening and skated off again was a bit odd. The audience were like
“What?” I suppose they needed to signify that it was underwater, but I
didn’t think this was a very good way of doing it. It seemed a bit
disjointed. We have more kids precision teams appearing as little fish,
joined by other company members. This was fine, the lighting was
excellent. Then it’s our Jayne & Chris skating their “Exotic Fish”
number, where they carry these really large fin type things. This is
interesting, the large fins do add something new, but there’s a lot of
skating apart, which doesn’t appeal so much to me personally. I think it
actually looks better if you screw up your eyes a bit and try and get a
good overview of the shapes they are creating with the fins. Really very
fish-like indeed.

This is followed by more company skating, before Jayne & Chris are back
for their “Jazz Fish” dance. This is an absolute fave of mine, it’s
brilliant, absolutely brilliant, particularly on second viewing. I’d love
to be able to see this a whole lot more, I trust a video release is
imminent! It’s really hard to describe, but the music is very modern,
could well be Art of Noise, although I really don’t know, the rather
annoying thing about the Ice Adventures program is that it doesn’t tell
you what any of the music is! Not very useful! Jazz Fish is really
up-tempo and jazzy in style (as you’d probably guess from the name) and
it just contains so many moves. It’s really radiant and so loose in style
with loads of those Chris Dean arm movements in there, I haven’t a clue
how he thinks of them, they’re so original, and just magic. And it has a
great ending pose too, just overall a really top dance! It would have
taken World Pros easily!

Funny Fish are next, they are 3 guys from the company with lights
attached to their heads, really bright lights that go on and off with the
skating. There are so many great lighting effects in Ice Adventures, the
show should probably carry an epilepsy warning! However I thought on
second viewing some of the company stuff wore a bit thin. But to finish
this, we have what was certainly one of the most novel things about the
show, Flying Fish. Here Jayne takes to the skies and flies! And it’s
incredible, when I first heard about it, I thought it sounded a bit
silly, but it works, it really works. Jayne is in a harness enabling her
to lift off with an ease that defies belief until you’ve seen it live.
Chris manipulates her flight from the ground, and she really goes high,
spinning about incredibly. There are two other couples doing the same in
other parts of the rink, but their grace isn’t at all comparable with
Jayne’s lightness and ease of flow. This was a hit with the audience, it
was what everyone was talking about at in the interval. Myself, I’m not
sure it’s a fave of mine, it was very clever, but I still like the
skating on the ground!

After the interval it’s Winter Games, this my fave at the moment. The
opening ceremony consists of the company (minus Jayne & Chris) bearing
their nations' flags. One of the guys is less than careful with his and
almost decapitates the others on more than one occasion. We have a few
warm-ups, more company skating, before we’re on with the first event, the
bobsled event. This was amusing, they skated about in their bobsled
wearing helmets and rather decent Adidas style 3 stripe skates. On their
way they were stopped by traffic officers and caught for speeding. Good
event, the audience did seem to take to it.

Then onto the ladies skiing, skated to M People’s “Moving On Up”. This
was skated by Jeri Campell, Christine Beleznay, Rossana Tovi, and Inna
Volianskaia. They were all great. The watching men’s hockey team
certainly thought so! But one of those hockey players looked a bit
familiar, ah, it was our Chris, looking very much the part in all the
gear and stick. The first time I saw the show Chris spent more time out
with the others, improvising and warming up, second showing, he was much
later to arrive. But fortunately, he was in time for The Hockey Event.

For me and my 17 year old pal, this was definitely a real highlight of
the show, it was just so funny. They kick off with “I Like to Move it,”
acting like real hard nuts. Chris has got all those hockey style moves
just right, it was great. Then a change of tone, it just gets funnier.
The music changes to this Hollywood Western style stuff, with the hockey
guys, well, erm, not acting quite as hard as they had been previously.
Oh, the things they can do with a stick! It was hilarious, and begging
for more whistles and laughs from the audience, but it just didn’t really
get many. Well it got them from me! Classic, Chris does really stand out
here, no disrespect to the other guys, they were all great, but his
timing and actions were just on another planet. Marvellous, probably my
fave bit of the show! I could watch those guys all day! ;-)X

After that we were onto the skating event. First it was the Ladies, and
the first competitor (who had a funny name I just can’t remember, played
by Charlene Von Saher) was really good. She took forever to get started
and her program, well it was just such a parody of a certain type of
ladies skating program. You know, the dull kind! She skated to this awful
opera and Chris (who was flirting with the girls on his hockey bench) had
his hands over his ears. She went on and on and eventually he fell
asleep! My thoughts exactly! She did this great take on the endings to
skating programs, trying to string it out for maximum dramatic effect.
The judges loved it, awarding straight 9s.

Second competitor in the ladies event was Susan Jackson, who provided a
stark contrast to the style of the first competitor by skating sexily to
“Big Spender”. The hockey guys much preferred this one for some reason!
And there were some rather loud whistles emanating from Mr. Dean's area
of the rink! Surprise, surprise, the judges didn’t like it, awarding
lower marks. At which the hockey players grabbed the scoreboards holding
up perfect 10.0s! Typical!

We couldn’t not have the Winter Games without the Ice Dance finals, could
we. A lonely Jayne enters the rink, the company having left. She’s
wearing this hilarious early Betty Callaway style ski suit thing. Too
funny! It’s announced that “Jaynova Torvilova” has lost her partner, so
basically she’s a bit stuck. It’s then announced that they’ve had a
volunteer to take her partner's place, when the bobsled team reappear
carrying a struggling Christopher Dean. The announcer goes “Well done
that man!” I thought this was probably the funniest thing I’ve ever seen
from T&D. Chris in full hockey gear skating with Jayne in ski suit to
“Only He Will Do” is just classic. At every opportunity Chris tries to
get away, but to no avail. Jaynova is just not letting him out of her
sight!

Eventually, the bobsledders pull off the hockey gear and ski suit to
reveal, shock horror, the Take 5 costumes. Well, Chris is minus shirt and
tie, instead he has a plain black top, which I actually prefer. Chris,
looking less than happy that he has to skate with Jaynova, grabs her and
pulls her into the middle, whilst he gets down on one knee, a la Bolero.
The intro to Bolero starts, surprising roars from the crowd (I had
forgotten they were in the arena) but Jaynova is having none of it. The
music cuts. Sighs from the crowd. Jayne skates away as the intro to Take
5 starts with a brilliant “forget that, this is so much better” attitude.
She coaxes Chris into joining, and well, what can I say, we all know how
blindingly good Take 5 is. I was delighted to see it live at last.
Although, it is a bit cut from how it was performed last season, the bit
cut being the bit leading into the drum solo, which I happened to love,
but never mind!

I have to point out again that the audience just weren’t receptive enough
to this brilliant joke on both my viewings. You know, it’s quite sad, I
think they wanted Bolero! Please, when are these people going to get over
that! Give me Take 5 any day of the week.

On opening night we also had the closing ceremony to the Games, but last
night, it was left out. Wonder why, I thought it was good! Next we had
the continuations of the comedy sketch between Martin Smith and Lee
Cornes. It carries on in a similar pattern as before, but this time the
Yeti is involved. At one point Martin drives off on the quad bike, and
the Yeti places a stick of dynamite in the back of the bike, leaving
Martin to blow up backstage. Well, yesterday they had a bit of a mishap,
the Yeti didn’t get the dynamite in the quad bike properly, it dropped
out. Poor old Roger the Yeti had to scramble to pick it up from the ice
(not easy when you’re a big, furry Yeti) eventually he got hold of it and
just slung it down the ice. Amazingly, it flew into the entrance just in
time for the explosion and the audience were none the wiser. Well done
that Yeti, good shot, old chap!

The final piece is New Years Eve Finale, set, surprisingly enough, on New
Years Eve at a city night-club. A bar is the main feature in the middle
of the ice, and members of the company, including J&C, dance around the
bar in typical Hollywood style to “Strangers in the Night”. Then we have
a really good rose- exchanging number from McDonald and Smith, I thought
they were really good throughout the show. Their dance actually concludes
with Chris nabbing Michelle McDonald, much to the disgust of Martin
Smith. Then it’s Richard Swenning skating with some of the ladies,
followed by more company skating involving T&D that I can’t really
remember that clearly. Whilst not skating, company members congregate
around the bar and at the cocktail style tables at the back of the rink.
Then T&D have a dance to “Something Stupid” which was really romantic,
certainly one of the most romantic things I’ve seen from them recently.
Although at the end Chris doesn’t actually get Jayne, she skates off.
Next number is “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You” where Jayne and
Chris are together, so I didn’t quite figure out what happened there!
Still, a ton of good skating in this, I think one of the moves from the
Rock 'n Roll OSP even gets there! And a very similar lift to the one that
ends Barnum, finishing with Jayne perched on Chris’ knee. Great stuff.

To finish, there’s the countdown to new year (the reappearance of the
clock from the start) and a large dose of falling balloons, snow, and
Auld Lang Syne. This could easily have been very corny, but it wasn’t.
It’s at this point each member of the company leaves the bar to do a
little star turn and have their name announced. Of course, last to go are
Jayne & Chris and they did that most excellent move from the SOI opening
last year, the one where Chris does the spread eagle and Jayne is wrapped
around him. It looked far more impressive live than on TV. And that was
it, the end. Or was it?

Nope, Lee Cornes arrives on Quad Bike, speeds up to Jayne, finally gives
her his flowers, she jumps onto his bike and is carried away! Shock
horror, Chris is left standing! The company does a circuit of goodbyes
before the re- appearance of Jayne and Chris to take their final bows.
With Roger the Yeti. Why not???? ;-)X

So, a really top show. On first viewing I wasn’t convinced, particularly
with the rather apathetic audience. But on second viewing I was
convinced, this is a brilliant and very clever show. Overall, it is
better than Face the Music, although it’s pretty different and for me,
there’s still nothing in Ice Adventures that matches Paperback Sixties or
Encounter.

I really can’t understand the audience reaction. There were times in the
show absolutely crying out for clapping along and more audience
participation, but it was just not forthcoming, for the life of me I
don’t know why. Have we Brits really become so boring? It’s not that they
didn’t like it, you may be forming the wrong impression, it was just I’ve
never seen T&D skate without ending up on my feet in a communal standing
ovation. That just didn’t happen at Ice Adventures, that audience feeling
wasn’t there. I spoke to a few people in the audience on both nights and
the general consensus was that T&D were as fab as ever but they preferef
FTM with it's "old favoutites". I think Ice Adventures was better
thought out and held attention much better than FTM. Also T&D were on the
ice so much more, you really got your money's worth! I guess the sad
truth is that people still want the golden oldies, and aren’t very
receptive to new things.

But apparenty, the audience in London was loads more receptive and
enthusiastic, so I guess either Birmingham is dull or I happened to go
when the audience was particulary unreceptive. Whatever, it's a great,
clever, and entertaining show that illustrates marvellously who the
greatest ice dancers are this season.

Kate

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet

[Barbara M. Kostanick]

tndl...@hotmail.com wrote:
<snipped lots of good review details>

Well, I'm jealous. I'd love to see this on TV rather than the
umpty-umpth rebroadcast of the Fox Skate International Exhibitions with
Suzy (they've got the GOODS to make you MELT) Kolber.

Thanks for the great review.

Barb Kostanick
Boulder

[tndl...@hotmail.com]

In article <34B1D9...@indra.com>,

"Barbara M. Kostanick" <ba...@indra.com> wrote:

> Well, I'm jealous. I'd love to see this on TV rather than the
> umpty-umpth rebroadcast of the Fox Skate International Exhibitions with
> Suzy (they've got the GOODS to make you MELT) Kolber.

Well I just heard they're filming the show at Wembley this week so it
shouldn't be impossible to get a copy of Ice Adventures 1997-98 into your
own living room!

[kenr...@ci.sat.tx.us]

In article <68nj9i$8...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
mike_*nospam*_di...@pobox.com (Mike N. Ding) wrote:
>
> Does anyone know the story of why Torville and Dean dropped out of
> Stars On Ice at the last minute? I attended the Seattle show last
> night and the program had them listed, but another ice dance team took
> their place. They were also conspicuously missing from the televised
> showing of Stars On Ice.
>

Mike,

Torvill & Dean were never scheduled for the first leg of the SOI tour.
They are currently on tour in the UK with their own show "Ice
Adventures." They were deep in rehearsal for this show when the SOI show
in Lake Placid was taped, so that's why they did not appear in the TBS
broadcast. T&D will join SOI after the Olympics; their first show will
be Feb. 25 in Minneapolis. They will take Katarina Witt's place. Roca &
Sur, the dance team you saw in Seattle, will be in the cast for the
entire tour.

Katie Enright
<kenr...@ci.sat.tx.us>