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Bofrost Cup 2003 - Free Dance

Hoffman & Elek opened the FD competition. The remarkable thing about their FD was that they were not skating to a Tango :P Their music was a fast techno part into some Italian ballad and back to a fast techno part. I felt they were a bit slow overall and that the fast music with the hard beat was overpowering them a bit and the choreography could have needed a couple of more highlights. The lifts were not all that memorable to me, but they did some nice hydroblading type moves. They still look a bit juniorish overall (well of course they ARE still juniors). Overall their dance was quite entertaining and I like their style, I certainly like this FD better than the one they had last year, but I was not 100% convinced by it. Their OD was more enjoyable.

Galler-Rabinowitz & Mitchel did the first Tango of the evening, it was some kind of "techno Tango" with electronic style music (seems to be terribly en vogue this year, unfortunately I'm not exactly crazy about it, but it's ok). I found some parts of their music a bit odd. They wore costumes in black and silver that I found a bit boring. Like in their OD they skated with nice flow and fine speed and displayed harmony and unison. I feel as a team they are a really good match. They did one cool lift with an interesting change of position and a dance spin that did not really fit the music that was playing at that moment at all. The dance was not overly exciting, but it was a quite polished overall performance. It was pretty much the same tempo throughout the whole dance though. Definitely a good showing in both OD and FD for them.

O'Connor & O'Dougherty had chosen two pieces of music that I really really like, first "El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge and then a ballad from Moulin Rouge, the song sung by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman where all the different classic love ballads are mixed in together. Unfortunately I was not really convinced with what they made out of this music, but I admit that I might have had very high expectations, I have always wanted some dance team to skate to "El Tango de Roxanne"...the "problem" with their Tango and also the second half of the program was that nothing they did seemed to have to do anything with their music, I didn't get any Tango feeling from them and the skating to the romantic ballad looked more as if they were skating some typical dramatic free dance. Technically the dance was fine though and they skated it well (and Katja really loved their dance, which brought her to the conclusion that she really has a completely different taste than Stefka and I ;) )

Domnina & Shabalin of course did their Tango/classic mix FD. They did a polished diagonal step sequence, they seemed to slow down a bit in the second half of the program and generally I think their speed and energy needs some improvement. I generally liked the Tango-ish parts better than the parts to the classic piece (for no particular reason). Overall it was a nice to watch dance. Unfortunately for whatever reason their music seemed to be played at a quite incredibly high volume (generally on the last day there was some "problem" with the volume of the music - either that or I'm getting old :P - during the exhibition it also was played really really loud) and therefor sometimes it really got jarring and hurting to the ears, it distracted me from being able to enjoy their dance a little bit.

Dubreuil & Lauzon of course also did a Tango, what else, also some kind of modernized dramatic "techno Tango". Generally their speed was fine, only their straightline lacked speed a bit. The parts were they were dancing on the spot were really cool and some of their lifts were really impressive, only their step sequences tend to be a bit underwhelming, not because of the steps they are doing, but because so far the execution is not polished yet. I like their FD, especially that it has a very "wholesome" choreography, not lots of different things thrown together, but actually enjoyed the OD a bit more. The FD is a bit too lift-centric for my taste, but they are of course incredibly good at them. And I like it a lot better than last years.

Faiella & Scali had OF COURSE also chosen Tango music, but for a change more traditional choices and no electronic enhancements. Their FD was by far my favorite of the competition, they skated with very good speed throughout and did a polished diagonal step sequence and also skated their circular footwork sequence with good speed, their spin was rather slow though and needs some work. I think they conveyed the best "classical" Tango feeling, even if they are maybe not mature enough to pull it off 100%. Still they had the best actually Tango-ish choreography. They did a really great long reversed lift (actually I think it was the required change of edge serpentine lift) and I really liked the ballroomish feeling of their dance (and again Federica's facial expressions).

Winkler & Lohse were the final dance team of the competition. After only watching their FD once I really can't decide yet what I thought about it, I'll have to rewatch it on the tape from the broadcast. Their FD has a "Day & Night" theme and they were wearing fitting costumes, Kati a dark blue costume with a huge moon on the front, Rene a yellow/orange costume with a big sun on teh front. Unfortunately I felt neither the music nor the choreography had anything to do with this theme, so it seems a bit forced. Their music started off with a slow ballad, actually a German version of Michael Jackson's "Earth Song", sung by some unrecognized German singer, who had a quite strange voice with a strange accent. Well actually not really an accent, but she was "rolling the r's". That sounded really pretty odd, but was also very short. The next part of the music was some fast Latin beat, then it went on to a slow part for which they used a music that Rahkamo & Kokko once used for an (I think one-time-only) exhibition, I just don't remember where and when they exactly skated it. I actually really liked this part of the dance, it was soft and fluent and had nice lifts. Unfortunately they fell right at the very end of it (not on an element though, it was some move where he was swinging her around him slowly). The last part was fast Latin style again. Overall the combination of different music pieces really gave an a bit odd impression and somehow managed to occupy much of my attention.