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Bofrost Cup 2003 - Original Dance

Well I did not take many notes during the OD and most definitely nothing even remotely IN TECHNIK, but here are some remarks anyway.

O'Connor & O'Dougherty wore dark blue costumes that did not look Swing-ish at all (and as far as I remember it could have been their FD costumes from last year). Their twizzles were out of synch, the first fast part was nice, the Blues wasn't memorable to me, they did a slow spin, some nice posing, generally they tended to be a bit far apart, their diagonal step sequence was quite nice, but I did not find their lifts memorable. Their speed was mediocre overall. The fast parts of their OD has cute and nice expression, but I thought they were lacking harmony in their skating a bit.

Winkler & Lohse's OD looked a lot better than at the gala in Ingolstadt some weeks ago (saw that only on TV). Their rhythms are Swing/Blues/Jive. They started off with good speed and did a fluent straightline step sequence. Kati fell during the Blues part, but I don't remember whether it was on an element or not. There were maybe a bit many "dancing on the spot" movements during the dance, but then all the other dance teams have them as well and I guess it's hard to do without them for this years rhythms anyway. Their speed overall was quite good and the dance was fun and entertaining. Their costumes were ruining their lines a bit (Kati's skirt and Rene's jacket).

Faiella & Scali have chosen Jive-Blues-Jive as their rhythms. Their Jive (Hafanana) is definitely a bit different, but in a cute way. Their music is really very audience friendly, just makes you want to clap and sing along. They had nice speed and good flow, I also liked their diagonal step sequence a lot, the straightline step sequence was rather slow and they got out of synch though. It is a really cute and adorable program, the execution was not 100% polished yet, but it is just a fun dance with "feel good" music and I really lurve her facial expressions (generally, not only in this dance). Plus she reminds me of Barbara :)

Domnina & Shabalin quite impressed me generally, because I noticed that Maxim Shabalin has quite a physical resemblence with Vitaly Novikov actually, when it comes to body type :D Ok, not quite Vitaly, but not bad at all either... They had chosen Blues and Boogie Woogie as their rhythms. They did a good job with the Blues feeling and did a cool step sequence to the Blues as well (another thing they have in common with K&N :P ), the straightline looked really good, but then towards the end he unfortunately fell during twizzles. The diagonal was also cool, even if she maybe was a bit much on two feet during it. Their speed and flow was quite good, but they were a bit sloppy.

Dubreuil & Lauzon have Swing, Blues, Swing as their rhythms. Their costume was interesting (Stefka claimed Marie-France's dress was like Minnie Mouse's ;) ), but I thought the colors did not go together all that well, a bit too much of a contrast between the two. Their straightline was close together, but a bit slow and a bit out of synch. The steps were cool though and they did a cool lift and a hydroblade move into another lift. Both their lifts were interesting rotational lifts. Their diagonal step sequence looked a bit messy. Overally it was a very cool ( I only noted down the word "cool" 4 times in my notes on them :P Maybe I should try to vary my vocabulary a bit more...) and entertaining dance, I liked them best of all the teams. Their step sequences generally looked sloppy though and lacked speed and flow in comparison to the rest of the dance, maybe they are struggling with the difficulty a bit.

Galler-Rabinowitz & Mitchell are quite tiny, but they have height difference and nicely matching body types. Their music was Blues and RnR. They started off with nice flow and decent speed and did a nice step sequence, expressing the Blues feeling nicely. Next my notes say a lot of words that I can't read anymore at all :P I really liked that their program was very dancy and they did a cool lift where she first went over his head and then through between his feet. It was a very cute and fun dance overall, I especially liked their musicality and expression. They did not have the difficulty of the other teams, but the dance had very nice flow and ok speed.

Hoffman & Elek had RnR/Blues/RnR. They started with good speed, but then did a bit much posing maybe, their unison was nice and they had a cool dance spin (god, i need to stop using the word cool, it doesn't tell anything at all). Their straightline was really good execution-wise, skated with good speed and actually in synch. Generally I had the impression that most of the teams had really difficult step sequences (for their respective standards) and the execution really suffered quite a bit so early in the season, because they tended to lose speed and unison, so it was nice to see a really well done sequence from H&E and it was my favorite step sequence of the competition. They had 2 moves where she went through his feet that both looked a bit shaky. Overall it was a very nice dance.