#drobiazko vanagas

[figureskatingcostumes]

Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas's free dance at the 1995 Skate Canada and the 1996 World Championships.

(Photos by Barry Mittan)

[dozydawn]

Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas Free Dance, 1996.

Soundtrack from Wild at Heart (1990) by Angelo Badalamenti and Sing, Sing, Sing by Benny Goodman.

[wtficedance]

when an announcer says "X's partner skills/partnering are/is exceptional" what does that mean, and does it always refer to the male partner?

Q #200:

Hi anon,

Awesome question. Partnering/partner skills refer to one of two things:

1. The ability to actually skate with your partner as opposed to simply existing on the ice at the same time. Refers to both the chemistry and projection between the two skaters to the audience as an entity and also important factors of spatial awareness in hold and when physically interacting with each other. The ability to anticipate what the other is doing and matching one another’s movement.

2. The ability of the male skater to “present” his partner according to the traditional lens of skating which falls under the very gender-role “woman is the flower and man is the stem holding her up.” There’s also the “lady is the picture and the man is framing her” schtick. This is all in accordance to the kind of very typical old, ice dance style where the woman is kind of held like a rag doll and told to hit pretty positions while emoting to the audience and the man does the skating and lifts her. Some retired teams that really fit this mold would be Dubreil/Lauzon, Khoklova/Novitski, Drobiazko/Vanagas. In this more gendered, traditional, reductive case the “partnering” would only refer to the man.

Skaters who are “bad” at partnering typically are skating like singles skaters either physically (not knowing how to interact with their partner, awkwardly doing choreography that requires holds and changes of position, maybe most importantly not knowing how to maneuver their partner safely during elements when something goes wrong) or emoting to the audience that way. Some of the 3 person rhumba patterns and partner swap exercises that Gadbois does are a really good example of which dancers have the best “partnering” skills, I would say Madi Hubbell is one of the best either leading or following. One of the most important developments in ice dance as skaters have sunk into IJS more has been more strength and “partnering” by women in lifts and taking more active roles in elements than simply hitting the splits. Even teams that have portrayed very traditional, romantic image are doing it in a more balanced physical manner where both partners are doing equal technical difficulty and are structuring their programs to be far more intricate than the traditional “picture and framing partner.”

Sometimes commentators try and “code” stupid comments about teams who don’t present as romantically as bad at partnering but some very heteronormative teams don’t excel at it (Nikita Katsalapov, Bobrova/Soloviev) and teams who are openly queer (Manta/Johnson) or who pursued very different storylines (Pechalat/Bourzat, the Kerrs, the Duchesnays, Delobel/Schoenfelder) who are very in tune both in terms of physical unison and projection.

Hope that answers your question!

[irritablefansfsblog]

Margarita Drobiazko & Povilas Vanagas, Phantom of the Opera FD, Euros 2006 [x]

[solraneth-archive]

Idk if y’all remember but this EX is absolutely legendary and it was my favourite program to watch as a child. Also I had a huge crush on Margarita (probably because I thought she looked like Keira Knightley lmao). Anyway I miss them :(

[peacocksonice]

Premiere of Tatiana Navka’s Ruslan & Ludmilla - it looks great! Dozens more pics at the source 

[fuckyeahrussianoverlords]

Good lord, Povilas Vanagas is a good looking man. I might have a low grade crush on his wife as well.

[figure-skating-watch-party]

Ice Age, episode 1

My newly acquired knowledge of cyrilic alphabet opened me a whole new world on Youtube, I can search names in Russian! That’s how I discovered this show (yes, that’s the show Alina and Yagudin are hosting). And I love it. Honestly, it makes me so happy that I can’t even describe how much. I suspects it’s for several reasons though. 

1) I’m not a competitive person. I don’t like too much drama. And when you are watching skating, there’s always something at stake. Here you just watch nice skating. Of course, there’s jury, there’s people’s voting. Some couples being eliminated. But in the end you can just enjoy the programs. You are not being reminded that this is the wrong edge or not a level 4 position in the spin :p You can just be amazed by the choreography from the beginning to the end. And that’s what I’m doing. 

2) As strange as it sounds... I enjoy that the people in places on social media I’m visiting (when I wanna talk skating) usually don’t watch this show. I don’t have to worry what terrible take or insult I’ll see on Twitter. What will be deemed “problematique” by the Twitter moral teen squad. The comments on Youtube are almost entirely in Russian. And because I’m reading cyrilic alphabet as slowly as a first grader I simply don’t read the comments. 

3) Maxim Shabalin. He a prince. He fluffy. I love him. 

So, the show is amazing. I’ve already said that. It’s like Battle of the Blades. But instead of speed skaters and hockey players the “new figure skaters” are celebrities like actors, singers, football players. So it’s Dancing with the stars but on the ice. 

There are fourteen couples. Which means fourteen amazing performances. Yay!!

Let’s quickly introduce the couples:  1. actress Nadezhda Mikhalkova / Maxim Marinin 2. journalist Olga Pautova / Maxim Shabalin 3. singer Vlad Topalov / Elena Ilinykh 4. host Vladimir Marconi / Margarita Drobiazko 5. actor Viacheslav Chepurchenko / Tatiana Totmianina 6. hostess, singer Regina Todarenko / Roman Kostomarov 7. actor Wolfgang Cherny / Oksana Domnina 8. actress Irina Pegova / Alexei Tichonov 9. actor Evgeni Pronin / Tatiana Volosozhar 10. actress Maria Lugovaya / Povilas Vanagas 11. football player Dimitri Sychev / Maria Petrova  12. hostess Olga Buzova / Dmitri Soloviev 13. singer Vlad Sokolovskii / Ekaterina Bobrova 14. actress Olga Kuzmina / Alexandr Enbert

It’s so great to see again the skaters who recently retired, like Dmitri and Ekaterina but especially Alexandr Enbert. (Also, Povilas Vanagas is hot). 

And now to my favourite performances:  Vladimir Marconi / Margarita Drobiazko - so much fun. 

https://youtu.be/rpDQfqWOKGk

Viacheslav Chepurchenko / Tatiana Totmianina skating to Alla Pugaceva. That was awesome. 

https://youtu.be/1_aEbkOhHGI Dimitri Sychev / Maria Petrova. The technical elements were imo so difficult. 

https://youtu.be/xOPm6mBh580

Of course, I can’t forget Olga Pautova / Maxim Shabalin. Just beautiful.

https://youtu.be/t-yCL7fN638 

And the best: Olga Kuzmina / Alexandr Enbert. Just so funny, jazzy, easy with amazing lifts. 

https://youtu.be/btUTwtniCbM

[ohtheseskaters]

                                      Tango Romantica Watchpost

Tango Romantica first made and appearence in the 70s and since then was frequently chosen as the compulsory dance.

1992 Worlds CD

Klimova and Ponomarenko 

Usova and Zhulin 

Grishuk and Platov

1994 Worlds CD 

Grishuk and Platov 

Moniotte and Lavanchy 

Rahkamo and Kokko 

Krylova and Fedorov 

Bourne and Kraatz

1996 Worlds CD 

Grishuk and Platov 

Anissina and Peizerat

1999 Worlds and Europeans CD

Krylova and Ovsiannikov 

Anissina and Peizerat

Lobacheva and Averbukh

Fusar-Poli and Margaglio

Drobiazko and Vanagas

2001 Worlds CD 

Fusar-Poli and Margaglio 

Anissina and Peizerat

2006 Europeans CD 

Navka and Kostomarov 

Grushina and Goncharov 

Drobiazko and Vanagas 

Delobel and Schoenfelder

2010 Olympics CD 

Virtue and Moir 

Davis and White 

Domnina and Shabalin 

Belbin and Agosto 

Faiella and Scali 

Delobel and Schoenfelder 

Pechalat and Bourzat 

Kerr and Kerr 

Cappellini and Lanotte 

Samuelson and Bates

Now that we watched it as a compulsory, here are the videos of tango (not specifically romantica though) as an original dance. 

(Note: it was also a part of the 2001/2002 OD mix but I feel like in that case it was overshadowed by flamenco and paso doble so not including it here)

1997 OD

Grishuk and Platov

Krylova and Ovsiannikov

Bourne and Kraatz

Moniotte and Lavanchy

Anissina and Peizerat

Fusar-Poli and Margaglio

2007 OD

Denkova and Staviski 

Dubreuil and Lauzon 

Belbin and Agosto 

Delobel and Schoenfelder 

Domnina and Shabalin 

Virtue and Moir 

Davis and White 

Faiella and Scali 

Pechalat and Bourzat 

Cappellini and Lanotte 

Weaver and Poje 

Bobrova and Soloviev

+

Truly legendary performance alert: Pakhomova and Gorshkov doing La Cumparsita

[figureskatingcostumes]

Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas practising and competing their Phantom of the Opera free dance at the 2006 World Championships.

(© A. Chempinski)

[dozydawn]

[wtficedance]

what do you think of the 2003 controversy about the Israeli team of Galit Chait and her partner winning bronze at Worlds and 20 of the 24 dance teams signing a petition saying judging was unfairly biased by politicking from her father Boris, the head of the Israeli fed? And that the Lithuanian team should have been on the podium instead? Galit is a tech specialist now, and her father still runs the Israeli skating fed, so nearly the entire field of a competition could speak up and call foul and be dismissed anyway, no repercussions

Q #211:

Hi anon,

I think you mean 2002 Worlds but yes another strike against the 6.0 system after a very contentious Olympics. I do think it’s a very unique circumstance because there are very few times in ice dance (or skating as a whole) where a weak, non-traditional skating federation controls the narrative and is influencing the formation of judging blocks. Normally in ice dance it’s highly influenced by coach even more so than fed. The whole incident was emblematic of all of the issues with 6.0 (blind block judging and alliances, politics entirely dictating scores in face of errors, a complete and utter lack of movement in standings except in block realignment, smaller federation teams like Drobiazko/Vanagas repetitively getting screwed and being unable to build momentum) but it was only because of a few reasons that it actually resulted in change:

D/V were VERY well-liked in ice dance

Chait/Sakhnovski were not and her father was essentially widely despised

Americans Lang/Tchernyshev took point on organizing the petition

all of the traditional powers in ice dance (Linichuk, Zhulin, Tchaikovskaia, Dubova, Zazoui, Gorshkov, etc.) had teams who were being slowed down by the Israelis

Anissina/Peizerat & Fusar-Poli/Margaglio didn’t compete at Worlds and would’ve been on the podium otherwise, it wouldn’t have generated nearly as much controversy if D/V and C/S were fighting over 5th

North American media were able to leverage the fact that D/V were getting f*cked over by the Eastern Block to apply that logic to Bourne/Kraatz

C/S only won ONE segment: FD

So yes, I do believe that D/V were deserving of bronze at that worlds but I don’t think it was a highway robbery, more of just a boiling over point.

My hot 6.0 ice dance take is that there was so little actual criteria when it comes to the free dances that it is hard to actively differentiate teams beyond a certain point. And a lot of the “well X was clearly better than Y” is truly just preference unlike the CD and OD where there was a clear emphasis on footwork, linking movements, edge quality, crispness, etc. That’s why it’s a little frustrating when commentary under IJS is like “well these teams are evenly matched in everything so its really just down to PCS” because while that was basically true for 6.0 it SHOULDN’T be true under IJS. Especially because all of the top teams since the inception have had very different strengths and weaknesses with their respective rivals. A lot of the things that we value in modern, IJS ice dance are completely different than under 6.0. For example, you’ll here commentators talking about the amazing quality and speed of a dance spin and in a 6.0 FD it will literally be 4 rotations max, where in modern programs they’re at minimum 9 and almost always closer to 20. Lifts are another animal as well beyond just “this is not aesthetically pleasing / this is aesthetically pleasing.”

I don’t think we will ever see something like this replicated because of (1) the Gadbois monopoly means that MF would largely have control over results and it’s more likely that Gadbois teams would be screwed over internally and you would lose all camp backing if you tried to petition, (2) there’s now a lot more money going into each result, and money trumps uniquely intimidating personalities, (3) it was riding the wave of the biggest scandal in skating history at the time and basically everyone in ice dance was sick of 6.0.

So yes it’s not the most ethical that Chait is so involved in sport but as Israel’s whole skater development program is C-list Jewish Canadians, Americans, and Russians, I highly doubt they’re going to be relevant in the next few decades that Chait will be involved. Hope this helps!

[irritablefansfsblog]

it's not an ice dance event if you don't find yourself asking the judges 'are we looking at the same competition' at least a couple of times

[peacocksonice]

Ad for Tatiana Navka’s upcoming ice show “Ruslan & Ludmilla” - cast includes Peter Tchernyshev, Alexender Smirnov, Ivan Righini, Artur Gachinski, Drobiazko/Vanagas, & Phillippe Candeloro. More info on the official website

[kateua]

Margarita and Povilas

I love this couple sooo much! (I esp. adore Povilas Vanagas =) )

Actors on the ice!

[ohtheseskaters]

                      Let’s Rhumba: 2017-2018 Short Dance Mix

First significant appearance of rhumba is season 1993-94. All the greats, all the, er, passion.

Torvill and Dean

Usova and Zhulin

Grishuk and Platov

Bourne and Kraatz

Rahkamo and Kokko

Krylova and Fedorov

And here are some rhumbas from 1997 Worlds where it was a compulsory dance:

Grishuk and Platov

Krylova and Ovsiannikov

Anissina and Peizerat

Bourne and Kraatz

Moniotte and Lavanchy

Lobacheva and Averbukh

Fusar-Poli and Margaglio

In the season 1999-2000 we had a latin OD for the first time:

Anissina and Peizerat

Fusar-Poli and Margaglio

Drobiazko and Vanagas

Lobacheva and Averbukh

Chait and Sakhnovski

Dubreuil and Lauzon

Lang and Tchernyshev

Semenovich and Kostomarov

Silverstein and Pekarek

Then season 2006. Now, as many of you remember, the OD at the Torino Olympics was extremely dramatic. Here are some dances from that season, including the dance that (I’m convinced) won Belbin/Agosto an Olympic medal and the death stare ™ dance:

Navka and Kostomarov

Grushina and Goncharov

Belbin and Agosto

Delobel and Schoenfelder

Dubreuil and Lauzon

Denkova and Staviski

Fusar-Poli and Margaglio

Domnina and Shabalin

Faiella and Scali

2007 Worlds, where rhumba was a CD:

Denkova and Staviski

Dubreuil and Lauzon

Belbin and Agosto

Delobel and Schoenfelder

Domnina and Shabalin

Virtue and Moir

Davis and White

And the most recent showing of the latin rhythms - 2012 SD:

Virtue and Moir

Davis and White

Pechalat and Bourzat

Weaver and Poje

Ilinykh and Katsalapov

Cappellini and Lanotte

Bobrova and Soloviev

Shibutani and Shibutani

Riazanova and Tkachenko

Hubbell and Donohue