2005 Global Dressage Forum

Freestyle On the Move

Another much anticipated session was the discussion and evaluation of the World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, but it generated mild disappointment from my side. Mrs Withages was extremely laudable about the unique atmosphere in Las Vegas and hoped that every show could be as exhilarating as the 2005 World Cup Finals. “We have to get rid of the cathedral atmosphere,” she claimed.

Withages stressed the fact that a good freestyle has to feature a “choreography like a ballet. It has to have a start and a finish.” She reiterated the foundations of a good freestyle which she lay at the 2005 Freestyle Forum in Ankum, Germany, in February. A good kur has a choreography that uses the arena fully and the music must display a unity in genre.

Withages showed three video clips of the top three Las Vegas rides (Debbie McDonald, Edward Gal, and Anky van Grunsven) and provided simultaneous commentary. She gave a strong impression that she is concerned with the public opinion. Globality for her does not only mean attracting more riders from different nations, but it also seems to involve the popularization of the sport world wide. To her, the kur to music is a gateway to attracting a public of laymen, who are more hungry for entertainment than classical training and purity in gaits.

Withages insisted that the three riders were ranked correctly and she left little room for discussion. She highlighted the fact that there was no tension in any of those rides, turning a blind eye to the non-execution of a decent extended walk by none of the three. Their overall correctness in the ride (no major mistakes) and an audience of ecstatic American spectators were plenty for her to award new record scores and boost the dressage sport.

The freestyle topic was further explored by Cees Slings and Victor Kerkhof, Anky van Grunsven’s in-house kur composers. The Dutch musical composers' duo Slings and Kerkhof thoroughly explained their work method, repeating their gig of the 2005 Freestyle Forum in Ankum, but adding additional information about their new FEI supported project "The Natural Rhythm of the Horse," which will be an audiovisual demonstration of the horse in movement on music in a ‘perfect’ dressage freestyle test.

Their work method involves videotaping the choreography of the kur, making a click track to it with each click representing the footfall of the horse’s front leg to create a beat. Then, they add music to the click track and gradually create a custom made kur to music with originally composed music. As demonstration riders, Slings and Kerkhof invited Laudy Miedema, a fourth level rider who rode a KWPN bred Kigali offspring to their music with a live violin player backing up the music. British Grand Prix team member Wayne Channon performed his Slings & Kerkhof designed kur 'Il Passeggiato'.

Text copyrighted Astrid Appels/Eurodressage.com, Images copyrighted Dirk Caremans -
No Reproduction allowed without explicit permission

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