2005
FEI/PSI Freestyle Forum
Figure Skater Daniel Weiss Stresses
Emotion and Creativity
The
highlight of the first day of the 2005 FEI/PSI Freestyle
Forum was without a doubt the speech of German
figure skater Daniel Weiss. There is a long standing
tradition to compare figure skating with dressage
and
claims have been made to adapt the
dressage judging system to that of ice
skating. At the Freestyle forum, however, it was
the first time that an internationally renowned
figure skater spoke in public and lay bare
his ideas on the sport.
Daniel Weiss, who is a neighbor of Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff,
talked emphatically about how the music for a kur
should reflect personal taste. "Your choice
in music should be your own. It should express your
own feelings
from the inside. Don't chose music to impress the judges
and the audience. You skate from your inner feelings
and will convince the judges like that," said
Weiss.
Weiss talked about the choreography of figure skating
kurs. The beginning usually contains the difficult
jumps, the middle section shows the character and artistic
potential of the skater and is a small break for him
to
prepare for the final part. The end has to be the highlight.
"The musical ending should be definite and never ordinary.
It has to stay in the same style as the beginning,
but the end pose is very important." As a skater, Weiss
first chose his music, then tried out whether he could
move to
it, before
creating a choreography.
Weiss
brought some video clips of world famous skating kurs.
One of them was Philippe Candelloro's "D'Artagnan"
kur, in which Candelloro played the role of D'Artagnan. "This
kur was more acting than skating, but he showed
total self confidence on the ice. He received
a spontaneous standing ovation from the audience for
it and won the Olympic
bronze medal," Weiss explained. Another memorable
freestyle was the Bolero freestyle performed by a British
skaters'
pair at the 1988 Olympic Games. This kur became controversial
because both skaters took risks by trying out unprecedented
movements. "All those movements
are
forbidden
now, but if they were to do the same kur again today,
they would still win Olympic gold. It was just perfection."
Weiss' speech on figure skating was highly interesting,
but in the world of dressage many of the figure skating
principles are inapplicable. The skating judging system
has 14 judges. Seven counting scores are randomly
picked by a computer from those 14, and the high and
low score are automatically scratched. Can you imagine
14 judge's
boxes round a dressage arena;
not
to mention
the cost
of
flying over and paying so many judges at each show?
Furthermore, the possibility to create unprecedented
movements
is very limited in dressage. The only way a rider can
be creative is by trying out new choreographiers on
experimental music (Edward Gal's kur for Lingh was
refreshingly new) and by playing with the difficulty
levels of some of the movements
(new transitions, new layout of a kur).
Text
and Images Copyrighted Astrid
Appels/Eurodressage.com - No Reproduction allowed
without explicit permission
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