The Age, Australia

By Cameron Woodhead

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The Imperial Ice Stars’ chocolate-box production of Swan Lake On Ice is grand. In adapting Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet to the rink, the Ice Stars bring an exquisite level of physical prowess, assembling some of the best ice-dancers and figure-skaters in the world. As a result, Swan Lake loses none of its majesty or expressiveness.The leads are mesmerising without exception. Vadim Yarkov skates with authority as Prince Seigfried, Olga Sharutenko as Odette is the picture of tormented grace. Andrei Penkine’s rakish Benno, Olena Pyatash’s charred beauty as Odile, and Anton Klyko’s sinister Rothbart are equally accomplished. It is a tribute to their skill that, for all its dashing spectacle, this is an effortlessly dramatic performance.

Of course, acrobatic feats adorn this show like icing on a wedding cake. Forget the jetes and arabesques of ballet - the skaters in Swan Lake On Ice can do backflips on ice, or skate with three other performers suspended from their bodies. Indeed, they can manage manoeuvres so complex that they haven’t been named yet. Some of the most striking visual moments come during the divertissements. The ballroom dance of the Russian princess involves a soaring aerial display, as does the dance of the swans. One arresting sequence even has black swans skating on stilts.

There were a few too many falls for comfort on opening night, but given the degree of difficulty they were easy to forgive. The majority of the show is flawlessly executed, and the occasional stumble threw into high relief the Ice Stars’ astonishing talent, brought to a crescendo in a dizzying final tableau. Against lush backdrops and in glittering costumes, Swan Lake On Ice is a magnificent exhibition of athletic artistry with the broadest possible appeal.

Herald Sun, Australia

By Stephanie Glickman

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The Imperial Ice Stars are familiar visitors to our shores, bringing classical ballets to life on an ice stage. In Swan Lake on Ice they take many liberties with choreography, costumes and music creating an entertaining, sometimes kitschy extravaganza.It is an ambitious undertaking, complete with stilt-skating, tricky partnering and levitating swans. The cast are all champion figure skaters, comfortable with the dangers of ice… The ice stage is not very large, yet they manage sweeping ensemble patterns, quick-handed sword play and duets packed with spectacular twirling manoeuvres.

The movement is unrelenting, the choreography busy and the narrative as hazy as the smoke that billows around the sinewy swans. With so many distractions on stage, it is often hard to appreciate the high skill level of what this large and enthusiastic ensemble is actually doing.

Most of the standout dancing moments and gravity-defying lifts happen in solo and duet sections, when the performers can more fully embody the melodrama of their characters. Andrei Penkine as Benno stands out for his wide-eyed grins and playful flirting with the audience. He has boyish charm while Vadim Yarkov as the Prince is more stoic. But it is Anton Klykov as evil Rothbart who steals the show. Decked out in red satin waistcoat, his movements are the most acrobatic, with a nod to breakdancing and many jazz ballet flourishes.

Swan Lake on Ice is not for ballet purists, but theatregoers up for a night of icy entertainment jam-packed with colourful costumes and theatrical tricks will enjoy this production from Russia.

Sunday Telegraph, Australia

By Diana Simmonds

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Now on their second visit to Australia and New Zealand and bringing with them a brand new show, the Imperial Ice Stars company has to be one of Russia’s more memorable exports. With 25 of the world’s finest ice dancers and athletes and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet score (with some snips and additions) new and spectacular meaning is given to the old story of the prince torn between two loves; the baddy and his blinding ambition and all the other aspects of aristocratic court life: promenading, hunting, flirting, watching colourful ethnic entertainments and generally having a good time in gorgeous clothes (Albena Gabueva) while waiting to be married off.Artistic director Tony Mercer has shared the choreography between seven artists and it shows in the variety and imagination displayed on stage. The company bursts with talent: the extraordinary stilt-skaters Vladislava Kovalenko and Stepan Eremin, for instance; the evil Rothbart (Anton Klykov) oozes menace and power, the prince (Vadim Yarkov) is grace and melancholy personified; Andrei Penkine’s saucy-sexy stage presence as Benno is a scene-stealer, while the dual swans Odette-Odile, in the form of Olga Sharutenko and Olena Pyatash, is a pairing that gives the evening some of its most unexpected, poetic and poignant moments.Eamon Darcy’s dreamlike setting of snow-drifted scrims and romantic forests and castles is perfect for the stark white ice stage and the ooh!!!-aah!!! factor is catered for with swans that really fly and grumpy cygnets who turn into swans even as they dance together.

Don’t go expecting the ballet Swan Lake - it isn’t - it’s different, exciting, spectacular, fun and if the Imperial Ice Stars don’t leave a new generation of Australian blade brats agitating for ice, then I’m Sonja Henie.

Swan Lake on Ice: Lyric Theatre Sydney last shows today; Princess Theatre Melbourne, from June 21; Festival Theatre Adelaide, from July 5; Westpac St James Theatre Wellington, NZ, from July 13; The Civic-The Edge Auckland, from July 26; Lyric Theatre Brisbane, from August 9; Burswood Theatre Perth, from August 18; Canberra Theatre, from September 5.

Sunday Herald Sun, Australia

By CATHERINE LAMBERT

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IT was a snap decision in childhood that turned Olga Sharutenko from pointe shoes to ice skates. Now she has come full circle, living in the worlds of ballet, theatre and sport as one of the leading members of the Imperial Ice Stars. Sharutenko, 28, plays the lead role of Odette in the company’s new production of Swan lake on Ice, a role that incorporates her ballet beginnings with her 20 years as a top ice skater.”I still love ballet, but my mother had been a figure skater, so that was really always going to be my destiny,” Sharutenko said. “Ballet and dance is the basis for the sport of figure skating anyway.” This beautiful production manages to sublimate the sport and emphasise the theatrical elements of story telling, visual effects and glorious costumes. Lighting and the romance of the ice suits Swan Lake more than other ballets and the lake scenes in particular are alluring.

The cast of 25 perform plenty of eye-catching tricks - many invented just for this show - but they are woven so carefully into the dance that they do not pull focus and artistic merit from the work. Performers often wear pointe shoes on the ice to emphasise the respect for this much-loved ballet and bring more artistry to the ice. Along with stunning, delicate and lavish costumes the show has an elegance not seen in previous ice theatre.

Sharutenko’s decision to hang up her competitive skates was a difficult one and it took her about a year to accept she would never return to the sport.”I missed the sport terribly at first because it had been my life since I was a child and it’s a life that doesn’t allow for anything else,” she said. “All the time I had to be ready for competitions, so for the first year in ice dance theatre I kept up with the competition circuit … I still thought I would go back, but something happened to change that, “I really hadn’t expected to find performing so interesting. I fell in love with it because it’s so artistic and allowed me to relax in many ways while exploring this artistic side. It’s much closer to my soul and heart than just the sport.”

It is also a much easier life in many ways. Since the age at eight, when Sharutenko decided to be a serious figure skater, she had been training four hours a day, six days a week. She still trains an hour a day in the theatre, performs eight shows a week and travels the world on tour. She can envisage at least seven more years on ice.

She may not be competing any more, but competition still thrives within the company as they all work to develop new tricks and moves. “Most of the people in company began in sport so we still have that sense of competition,” she said. “If I see someone try a jump in a new way. I want to do the same. We are still just as dedicated and disciplined. but are performing for an audience of 1500 people rather than nine judges. “That is the most important thing to me - to get a reaction from the audience to your movements and how you tell the story.”

The Australian
By Deborah Jones

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SWAN Lake on Ice plays fast and loose with the world’s most-loved ballet but then, if you take the purist view, so did the English National Ballet’s Derek Deane with his vast arena staging, and even Australia’s Graeme Murphy with his “there were three people in this marriage” version for the Australian Ballet.In keeping with old Soviet practice, Swan Lake on Ice, performed by a company of Russian stars, is not a tragedy. The magician Rothbart is defeated, Odette is freed from the spell that turned her into a swan, and she skates off with her prince, but not before she has gone a few rounds with Rothbart herself. This production offers a kick-arse Odette. In a further development, Odile - the roles are taken by two performers rather than the now traditional one - sees herself as Rothbart’s pawn and gives her blessing to the young couple.

Odette’s lack of fragility is in part determined by the nature of ice dancing, where speed leads to exciting jumps, turns and spins. There are, however, opportunities for lyricism that Olga Sharutenko, who performed Odette on Wednesday, skated over, if you’ll forgive me. While Englishman Tony Mercer is listed as the artistic director, the choreography appears to have been created by committee and is a mixed bag. … The ensembles for courtiers and for the princesses who are paraded before Siegfried are wonderful, the former elegantly arranged and the latter pyrotechnic.

The hard-working leading men reel off expert and endless streams of tight spins, multiple air turns, lifts and backflips mainly because they can, and a closer look at why they’re doing it would strengthen the drama considerably. Siegfried’s friend, Benno, for instance, does a bravura dance to the Black Swan’s music while Odile is standing right there. Most peculiar. But the audience is perhaps unlikely to know or care about such detail…

Such is the vitality of Swan Lake on Ice that even this - is desecration too harsh a word? - can’t spoil the enjoyment. Yes, there is a close flirtation with kitsch and some bumpy dramaturgy, but there’s also something absolutely right about a swan queen who can skim across a frozen Russian lake and who, in one of the production’s most satisfying moments, can really fly.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia

By Jill Sykes

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WHAT a Show! Echoes of the Petipa and Ivanov choreography are still around in the framework of the familiar story, … But this Swan Lake is an extravaganza with so many skating thrills that it is about as close as you could get to an action movie and still keep your blades on the ice. Even that isn’t a foregone conclusion.These versatile performers fly high over the stage on wires and swap Skates for Pointe shoes as well as maintaining a skating virtuosity that leaves you dizzy with the conventional routines alone. On top of those, there is skating on stilts, a fire on the ice, a sword fight, gymnastics and a tap dance.

Above all, the first-night cast of the Imperial Ice Stars were more than outstanding technicians. They are Performers who know how to dance, extracting maximum grace and style from their movement. The fluency of their phrasing, powered by the momentum and speed of their medium, is thrilling. The leading Performers were breathtaking, with far more to do than their classical ballet equivalents. As Prince Siegfried, Vadim Yarkov is a tireless partner and an exciting solo performer. Andrei Penkine, playing his friend Benno, supplies the humour of ballet’s jester role as well as dazzling dance.

Unlike most ballet versions today, the roles of Odette and Odile are divided, with a twist at the end. Olga Sharutenko and Olena Pyatash are lean, athletic and graceful in their contrasting characterisations. Odette has a very interesting battle with the evil Rothbart - brilliantly portrayed, physically and mentaliy by Anton Klykov - in which male and female are equally empowered in hand-to-hand fight choreography.

Albena Gabueva’s costumes are beautiful and complemented by Eamon DArcy’s Sets. … My worry was that it was all so spectacular the fine quality and personal daring of what we were seeing might seem everyday. It’s not.

The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia

By Elicia Murray

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Tony Mercer admits he’s a terrible ice-skater, but insists that’s an advantage when it comes to choreographing complex ice dances. “Because I can’t skate, I don’t know what they can’t do,” says the man who directs championship skaters the Imperial Ice Stars. The company, which toured Australia two years ago with Sleeping Beauty on Ice, is back with a frosty twist on Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.Mercer’s determination to push his dancers was apparent during rehearsals, as Vadim Yarkov, the Russian skater who plays the role of Prince Siegfried, discovered. As the choreographer attempted to refine a sequence, he asked the skater if he could lift two women simultaneously. Smiling, Yarkov replied: “Why don’t we try three?” Audiences will be able to judge the results themselves when the former member of the Russian national ice skating team attempts to lift three ice dancers during performances in Sydney this week.

This competitive spirit distinguishes theatrical ice skating from the knockabout humour of Disney ice arena spectaculars, according to English-born Mercer, who lives in Moscow. The company of 40 people - including 26 performers - have about 200 medals among them, including Olympic, world, European and national championship honours. Audiences may marvel at the apparently seamless performances; gasp as lavishly dressed skaters perform breathtaking double axels, triple flips, death spirals and high-speed lifts. But the fiercely competitive skaters are constantly analysing their own and each other’s every performance.

“I could sell tickets to what happens offstage,” says Mercer, who is also the show’s artistic director. One of the prime attractions might be the queue outside the tour doctor’s room. He has had to attend to one ripped groin muscle, two broken ribs and more than 100 cuts requiring stitches. “And this is just the rehearsal period.”

The dreamlike sets were designed and built by an Australian team led by Eamon D’Arcy, who took instructions from Mercer in Moscow. D’Arcy is no stranger to unconventional stage surfaces; one of his last projects was the musical Saturday Night Fever, which featured a floor of flashing disco lights. For Swan Lake on Ice, the Sydney-based set designer faced the logistical challenge of an ice rink floor made of 14 tonnes of ice, with 15 kilometres of pipe keeping the temperature below 15 degrees. The set also includes a fountain on stage during the courtyard scene, while elaborate chandeliers lend sparkle to the ballroom scene. D’Arcy agrees the performers’ competitive mentality keeps the show fresh.

Each skater is out to score a “perfect six” each night, if only in their own minds. The intimate theatre environment, he says, exposes audiences to an intensity and focus lacking in the draughty expanses of huge arena extravaganzas. He cites as an example the tactic one Sleeping Beauty on Ice skater used when he sensed audience members might be nodding off. “When he came down the front at this incredible speed, he would flick his skate and it would spray the front two rows [with ice]. It was like a little wake-up call. It was fantastic.”

The Swan Lake on Ice creative team is reluctant to draw comparisons between ice-dancing and classical ballet, preferring to highlight the skills required for each genre. According to Mercer, whose dream of becoming a professional footballer ended with a broken leg at age 18, comparing ice skating with ballet is like comparing football with Aussie Rules. When it comes to Swan Lake, what the two styles of dance share is the music of Tchaikovsky to bring the fairytale to life. “The music is beautiful and it’s an absolutely wonderful story, and both those things lend themselves to ice.”