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tale
Novice skater
Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Posts: 6
Location: NZ
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 Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:39 am Post subject: From Brisbane |
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From Courier Mail
| Quote: | Skating star Olga Boguslavska in return to Brisbane
Article from: Fiona Purdon
October 01, 2008 10:23am
WHEN ice-dancer Olga Boguslavska first came to Brisbane, she was a wide-eyed 13-year-old competing at the 1995 world junior ice skating championships.
She has returned 13 years later with her first big role in the Imperial Ice Stars' breath-taking Cinderella on Ice production at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC, starting tonight.
Boguslavska, 26, of Latvia, is playing one of the nasty step-sisters in this original interpretation of Cinderella.
The former world junior champion was only a teen when she first came to Brisbane, but the memories have remained.
"Brisbane and the Gold Coast were beautiful," she said.
"We did a lot of walking on the beaches at the Gold Coast and bought a lot of souvenirs.
''For me, Brisbane is my favourite city in Australia, it was where I had my first major competition and it's a very beautiful city."
Boguslavska is one of 23 Olympic, world or international championship representatives who star in the two-hour Cinderella on Ice, which features eye-catching Olympic-standard skills.
Some 14 tonnes of ice have been used to create the stage at QPAC while Albena Gabueva, formerly of Moscow's famous Stanislavsky Theatre, has designed the program's gorgeous costumes.
The ever-smiling Boguslavska is thrilled to have earned her first big role but she revealed it had taken a lot of rehearsal to channel the "nasty" personality required for playing the step-sister.
"At first, in rehearsal, I was told I was too soft and sweet," she said.
"I really had to work hard to change my character and play a nasty girl.
''The other step-sister and I say before rehearsal: 'I hate Cinderella' so we push ourselves in a nasty way." |
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leading
Novice skater
Joined: 13 Jul 2008
Posts: 2
Location: Melb
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| Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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This was on Couriser Mail a week ago...
COI Preview
| Quote: | Cinderella on Ice stars dance to a new tune
Fiona Purdon
September 20, 2008 12:00am
THE Imperial Ice Stars' Cinderella on Ice show has set new boundaries in ice dance theatre with breathtaking Olympic-standard skills.
Olympic golden couple Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean were dynamic trailblazers in figure ice skating. But when the idea of performing in a theatre was pitched to them, both said it could not be done.
The pair may have won the 1984 Olympic ice dance crown in Sarajevo with an unforgettable rendition of Bolero, but Imperial Ice Stars' artistic director Tony Mercer has proved them and dozens of critics wrong for the past decade as he delivered emotionally-charged and outstandingly skilful ice shows in the theatre.
Cinderella on Ice is his latest and most breathtaking production, with stunning costumes, an original music score and show-stopping athleticism.
Mercer says one of his 14-year directing career's most rewarding moments was when Torvill came to see Imperial Ice Stars' Swan Lake in England two years ago and was "blown away".
"She felt it was taking performance to a new level," he says. "I hear that all the time, we are doing new things and Jayne was amazed at what was happening."
It was a 1987 performance of Bolero in an ice arena by Torvill and Dean that set Mercer on the theatre path.
"Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill melded technical brilliance with artistry," Mercer says. "They made sense of figure skating.
"I really wanted to see Bolero. I was in a massive arena in Edinburgh and I couldn't see a thing. I was at the wrong end of the ice arena and they were too far away. That idea of doing ice dance in a theatre was locked away."
Manchester-born former singer Mercer was then approached to stage and direct an ice dance show in the theatre by Wild Rose Ice Theatre and was asked to find performers after Torvill and Dean had turned down the producers.
Having moved to Moscow in 1998, Mercer turned to Olympic-standard Russian ice stars and coaches and, in 2003, co-created his own company, Imperial Ice Stars.
"Chris and Jayne had told the producers it was impossible, that the concept wouldn't work," he says. "Their mindset was that it should be in an ice arena.
"We've found a new way of presenting ice dance. It does work.
"We have got incredibly talented and technically strong skaters."
The magic of the ice
Siberian-born Olga Sharutenko, who plays Cinderella, says she also once doubted how much could be achieved on a theatre stage. She says skaters first practise on an ice rink with the theatre's dimensions taped out and it takes a lot of training to adapt their techniques and perform in a small area.
Sharutenko remembers the night that Torvill, one of her childhood heroes, attended the theatre.
"It's amazing, Jayne and Chris - they are my heroes of figure skating, they were so great on the ice, so technical and how they worked together, " she says.
"When Jayne came to watch our show, I was very nervous. We wanted to do the best we could for her.
"She knows everything about figure skating. To have such compliments about the show and for someone like herself to appreciate our work means a lot," Sharutenko says.
"She is now saying it is very difficult to do what we are doing, but she now sees it is possible."
Sharutenko dreamt of being an Olympic gold medallist like Torvill and Dean and after winning the 1995 world junior championship ice dance crown in Budapest with partner Dmitri Naumkin, that goal remained on track.
The pair were told by Russian sports officials that they were going to the 1998 Nagano Olympics in Japan but two days before the European Championships, which doubled as the Olympic qualification tournament, the duo were pulled from the competition and their Olympic dreams were in ruins.
"We had put in all our energy and time, training and training and then to be told we were not going, we were more than upset," Sharutenko says.
"We were devastated to miss out on the biggest achievement you can have in your career."
Sharutenko took a year's break and pursued theatre ice dancing. She didn't miss the pressure of competition and felt at home on stage performing for an appreciative audience so she stayed.
"I always say I have my Olympic medal every night with a standing ovation, when people enjoy what you are doing. In a theatre you can feel the audience."
Mercer has collected a who's who of Russian Olympic gold-medal skaters and coaches - including double Olympic ice dance gold medallist Evgeny Platov - to help choreograph and make his ambitious visions a reality.
He has changed the traditional story and made Cinderella more accessible to today's audience, replacing the prince with the lord mayor's son, Andrei Penkine, and the fairy godmother has been changed to a gypsy fortune-teller, Viktoria Zhukovstova.
This updated Cinderella has a new music score from Tim Duncan plus gorgeous new costumes.
"For a while when we were doing shows, we were compared to ballets but Cinderella on Ice is a whole new concept," Mercer says.
"We are not copying anything. We are creating entertainment. We are trying to tell a story but in our original way." |
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