Skating Club of Boston<\/a> for the first time, is a series of workshops and an evening performance on Saturday, October 14th that honors two-time Olympic gold medalist Dick Button. Paul Wylie, the 1992 Olympic silver medalist whose skating was regularly celebrated by Button, is the co-founder of the event, along with Curtis McGraw Webster of the Lisa McGraw Figure Skating Foundation.<\/p>\nCreating an event that celebrates Button and the aspects of skating he appreciated the most is important to Wylie. Button\u2019s initial contributions to skating may have been his technical prowess \u2013 landing the first double Axel and triple jump in competition \u2013 but what he truly treasured was the glide and the flow now more often shared by artistic skating companies.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Button) had a hand in creating both Ice Dance International and Ice Theatre of New York,\u201d said Wylie. \u201cHe has been an advocate for artistic skating for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n
North\u2019s Ice Theatre of New York, the first non-profit artistic skating company in the U.S., will present four pieces at the festival, including Of Water and Ice, a piece on climate change choreographed by the founder and director of Time Lapse Dance, Jody Sperling. Another piece, La Revolte Des Enfants, is a \u201cvisually playful\u201d one, per North. It was choreographed by Alberto Del Saz, a former Spanish national champion and the current artistic director of the Nikolais\/Louis Foundation for Dance. He previously choreographed for U.S. Champion Nicole Bobek and two-time Olympic bronze medalist Philippe Candeloro.<\/p>\n
North is excited that such an opportunity exists for her company, as well as others, and that it is sponsored by someone outside of the groups themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this event is really important,\u201d said North. \u201cIt is very important that someone outside of the companies arranges it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webster\u2019s IDI will present four pieces at the festival, including one on loan from ITNY. Dare Greatly, a piece commissioned in 2009 commemorating the life of former U.S. national junior champion Will Sears, who tragically passed away at the age of 20. It is based on a screenplay he was writing while a student at NYU, where he addressed \u201cdaring greatly\u201d in the face of adversity. Choreographed by Webster and owned by ITNY, it will be skated Saturday by two-time U.S. champion and 2010 Grand Prix champion Alissa Czisny, former Team USA ice dancer and acclaimed author Karina Manta, and Ukrainian and U.S. competitor Kseniya Ponomaryova.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about finding the courage to challenge yourself,\u201d said Webster. \u201cSo many different skaters have skated it, and it resonates with people. We wanted to bring that to the festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webster\u2019s IDI will also perform Three Smokers, a piece choreographed by longtime New York City Ballet dancer and former director of the Miami City Ballet, Edward Villella. Inspired by his marriage to 1969 Canadian champion Linda Carbonetto, he got involved in skating and helped found IDI.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an amazing opportunity to promote what skating can be,\u201d said Webster. \u201cWe want to build a bridge between sport and art.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to ITNY and IDI, the Next Ice Age, American Ice Theatre, Joy Skate Productions and the Lexettes synchronized skating team will perform during Saturday\u2019s exhibition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Next Ice Age is rooted in the John Curry style,\u201d said Wylie. \u201cWhile AIT is more extemporaneous. They have these approaches that differ.\u201d<\/p>\n
All involved are hopeful this festival continues to grow and inspire, eventually becoming skating\u2019s version of the Edinburgh Festival, a renowned international arts festival.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully it becomes a global festival,\u201d said North.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that it brings new ideas that help people understand skating differently than the rules of competition,\u201d said Wylie. \u201cThere is an artistic side to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Kat Cornetta, Team FSO Contributing Writer Why do figure skaters love skating? Doug Webster argues it is the \u201cflight and flow\u201d that pulls people in and keeps them on the ice. \u201cThey get to experience the wind against their face,\u201d said Webster, the Founder and Executive Artistic Director of Ice Dance International. A longtime…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,341],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shows","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39390"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39395,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39390\/revisions\/39395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}