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by Alina Adams

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Thursday, April 06, 2006

AS THE WORLD TOURS: BOITANO & WITT GO "SKATING"

Following in Scott Hamilton's touring footsteps, fellow American, Olympic champion Brian Boitano launched Skating in 1990. With Katarina Witt, Rosalynn Sumners, Underhill & Martini, Caryn Kadavy, Gary Beacom, Blumberg & Seibert, and others, Skating travelled to 31 U.S. cities. Like Stars on Ice, it featured group numbers as well as solos ranging from Witt's portrayal of Delilah's seduction and betrayal of Samson, to Beacom demonstrating -- sans music -- his repertoire of funky edges.

Skating debuted in Portland to a sold-out audience, a result that was by no means a given, despite the popularity of its stars, since, at many venues, Skating came to town on the heels of the World Tour. Since Collins' contract with arenas included a clause forbidding them from advertising another skating show until after the World Tour left, fans calling to ask about Skating were often told no information was available.

A year later, Skating II returned to the ice with most of the same cast, and a "light and dark" theme, wherein the first part of the show featured exclusively light-colored costumes and flowing music, and the second half focused on darkness, with black costumes the rule, and throbbing, pulsating music.

After its third edition, the show's producer sold Skating's dates to Stars on Ice, leaving Boitano, after a quick pop back into the eligible world for the 1994 Olympics, to branch out into other concepts, including Skating Romance I, II and III, Skating Kicks Back: Country Music and More, and The Brian Boitano Holiday Skating Spectacular, all produced by someone he could trust -- his own production company, White Canvas.

As Skating Romance's Artistic Director, Brian was also able to insist on a touch cheered by many TV-watching skating purists. He mandated that his show be broadcast with no announcers. He was determined to let the skating stand on its own, and speak for itself.

Brian's co-star for the inaugural Skating Romance was Oksana Baiul, fresh from her triumph in Lillehammer, and somewhat unused to life amongst the pros.

Brian was reportedly quite patient in directing and coaxing precisely the performance he desired out of her for their somnambulistic pas-de-deux to La Sonambula.

His co-star for Skating Romance II, however, was the always professional Katarina Witt. Arguably the sharpest woman in skating, Katarina was also then the one with the highest worldwide profile, based, in no small part, on the charisma she generates on the ice. With Katarina as his partner, Brian was able to produce a sexier, more adult duet.

For Skating Romance III, on the other hand, Brian chose to headline with his good pal, teen-ager Michelle Kwan, leaving choreographers Renee Roca and Gorsha Sur to feel a touch squeamish about putting together one of their traditionally sexy numbers for a seventeen year old girl, and a man old enough to be her father.

Brian reassured Renee and Gorsha that sexy wasn't what he wanted at all, and, instead, they conceived a routine where, in Paris, a giggly Kwan pursues the object of her crush, Boitano, by following him around and aping his every move, including every triple jump. Considering that, in real life, Kwan's first memory of watching skating on TV is Brian winning the 1988 Olympics, the number proved not so far off from the truth.

A few years earlier, the notion of an amateur skater like Kwan performing on the same ice as hard-core professionals like Boitano and Roca & Sur, would have been inconceivable. But, by 1997, it was just another one of the perks available to the new eligibles.
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