Magic and Skating: A Russian Ice Show
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At the end, some girls from «Paradies» team showed them 6.0 marks. The public cheered them, hoping that they had just witnessed future stars. The presenter wished them good luck and announced Oksana Domnina & Maxim Shabalin on to the ice. They skated to Queen’s “The Show Must Go On”. It was a great act, emotional and expressive, worthy of the immortal song and I’m sure they will come to my mind whenever I hear this song. |
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During the break in the skating program, the presenter showed a video clip with Julia Obertas looking for Sergei Slavnov and getting mad at finding him in a dressing room surrounded by girls. She decided to “saw” him in half (another silly trick). The presenter asked the audience if Julia should forgive him. Contrary to his expectation people unanimously shouted "No!" It was fun to watch. Then Julia and Sergei skated to “Metelitsa”. The program was in their usual colourful style, extremely difficult and flawlessly performed.
Elena Sokolova skated to a Russian folk piece. It was nice but
not so impressive.
Evgeni Plushenko stepped on to the ice with a funny suitcase to
perform “Sharmanka”, a program that was choreographed
especially for this event. No wonder the crowd welcomed him with
thunderous applause. He was dressed in a vagabond-looking coat,
bright pink shirt, baggy pants with suspenders and wore a hat. Well,
it looked good. It was a great act, probably the best of the show.
It was really something new for him. Plushenko seems to be recovering
quickly from his surgery, judging by his jumps. At the end he opened
the suitcase and let a red heart-shaped balloon fly. It was very
cute. Everybody was applauding all the way through the program.
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Next was the second entrance of Maria Petrova & Alexei Tikhonov. They skated to a contemporary remix of“Ave Maria”. It featured the same good lifts, throws and the headbanger. After skating their act they performed a trick: she was lifted as if suspended in mid-air by an invisible force. Obviously she wasn’t. However it looked nice, just because Alexei said that Maria could fly when people say nice words about her, and he did say quite a few words. It was sincere, and everyone liked it in spite of the stupid trick. |
Alexei Urmanov had chosen “Skazka moei zhizni” (“Fairy-tale
of my life”) for his second entrance. His fans saw everything
they love in his skating – it was graceful, elegant, emotional
and romantic. A real pleasure to watch.
The show continued with Tatiana Navka & Roman Kostomarov’s
colourful, vivid and energetic performance with all their trademarks,
Irina Slutskaya and her trademarks - 3 triples, 2 Biellmann spins
and 2 Biellmann spirals. This time she showed quite a different
image – feminine and romantic.
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Elena Berezhnaya & Anton Sikharulidze were announced to conclude the show. Anton was looking gorgeous in a black shirt, black pants and a black cap as they started their "Dance mix" medley. It began with R’n’B and breakdance (Anton did some breakdance elements on ice and it looked extremely stylish) and ended with their famous “Kalinka”. |
The presenter was not as entertaining as he might have thought, and the real crown of the show was the expanded version of the “Sex bomb” which Evgeni Plushenko performed together with Irina Slutskaya and Elena Berezhnaya. They were dressed like cleaning ladies, carried buckets and brooms. They chased him like his fans but with no result, of course. When they took off the scary working costumes and appeared in their nice outfits he started to chase them. As revenge they “sawed” him in half. Good idea and well done.
During the finale, all the skaters were on the ice and they did their tricks, and then skated around under a rain of fireworks. It was a great show where everyone gave it their all.
Note: The report is from the show on June 3rd, the photos are from June 2nd.