October 20, 2004
KATARINA WITT AND FRIENDS
by jmfunnyface
I'm back from the show!! It was a fun time, I have some rants but I'll save them for last. I'll recap as much as I can, but I'm only going to do my favorite parts rather than bit by bit because there were a few skaters I don't really know, and some that didn't really turn out anything note worthy (*cough* Nicole Bobek *cough*). First, sorry the camera phone thing didn't work, there was too much glare on the ice for my little phone. Thank you to MoonlightElegie for helping me try it out! However, I got about 70 pictures with my digital camera, and from a quick glance, I think I have som pretty decent pictures on there. Unfortunately I have a Mac at home with no floppy drive, so I'll either post pictures tomorrow from work, or while I'm on vacation visiting a friend!
Firstly, Katya was absolutely wonderful tonight! She was just spot-on fantastic. The opening number was very good, Patti LaBelle sang live, her new single. The ladies wore black mesh dresses with hot pink underneath the mesh. Cuter than it sounds.
Katya skated second that evening. They announced her as Ekaterina Gordeeva two times Olympic *pairs* gold medalist, which made me happy because last year she mentioned that it upset when they drop pairs from her introduction. The costume looks fantastic in person, and matches the music perfectly. I can't identify the song. The first words are something like "it's night...." very mellow music. She landed every jump cleanly, not even a wobble. The crowd really applauded for her at the end.
Kristi skated soon after her to the music from "Triplets of Bellville" very funky music. She fell once (a very big fall, it looked painful), but she looks like she's in top shape.
Katarina Witt skated last in the first act. I'm assuming her number was in recognition of Melissa Etheridge and Melissa's announcement last week that she had breast cancer. She skated to an acoustic version of "Come to my window" it was very slow and sad, and the lights on the ice were colored pink. There was no announcement made if that's why she skated the number, but she's skated to Melissa before, and I know she's a fan of her music, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a type of tribute. It was a very pretty number.
After intermission, a very young singer came on stage. I think her name was Hayley (don't quote me on it though). She was 17, and had a very powerful voice for such a young girl. She sang "Amazing Grace" while Yuka Sato skated. The music was perfect for Yuka and her soft and pretty skating style. A perfect pairing, and the singer's voice gave me little chills. The more I see Yuka skate the more I like her.
After Yuka skated, Katarina Witt joined her on the ice while Hayley sang another song, I can't identify. They were both wearing little baby pink costumes. Yuka skated a bit, then Katarina, and then Katya in the same costume as Yuka and Katarina came out and skated with them. They all skated together for a while.
Steven Cousins skated a very fast number to the song from the ipod commercial. I think it's the Strokes, the music begins "one two three .." It's a great song, with a good beat, the audience really seemed to enjoy it.
Katya came out again a bit later in a really great hot red dress. It reminded me of a costume a ballroom dancer would wear (I kept calling it the ChaCha dress in my head). It had those long dangly beads, then when the dancer moves they shimmy and flare out. It was a cute little costume. The music was very very fast paced, and the words were like "It's a body revolution" or "It's a revolution in your body" something like that. Almost Latin sounding maybe, but again I couldn't identify the singer. She does a lot of little shimmys and shakes her hips a lot. It struck me as a very flirty program, and she seemed to enjoy herself. She fell on one jump in the number, but the rest was really solid looking.
Kristi skated after her. They did their little high five as they passed each other, it must be a little ritual they do when they skate in the same show. Kristi skated to Celine Dion's new song, no mistakes as far as I remember. Another very pretty number, her costume was *amazing* shades of blue and very sparkly.
The finale was great. It was music from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Katarina and the guys skated to "It's My Party" and Katarina played a flirt (of course!). There was a bit where the girls chased Steven Cousins around the ice that had the audience really laughing as he ran across the ice. When Katya came out with the last group of skaters, the music changed to "Do You Love Me?". Katya seemed to really like this number, she was laughing and smiling, although I guess it's hard not to smile when you're doing the mash potato, the twist and the swim
During the intermission there was a announcement to pre-order SOI tickets and it said, "With Special Guest Stars Sarah Hughes and Ekaterina Gordeeva." I jumped out of my seat with excitement! However, when I went to the box office, they could not confirm that Katya would be there, but it was too early to order tickets anyway. So, yippee if she's really going to be there!!
I do have two rants about the show, that made the overall quality seem like the show was thrown together an hour before we got there. First, no programs!! Not even a photocopied piece of paper with the names of the skaters on it! There had a lot of live singers (Patti LaBelle, Jodi Messina and that 17 year old) and I want to know their names and the names of the songs! If they want people to buy their CDs, it's really hard to do if you don't know the names, grrrr!! (Plus I like keeping the program/sheet of paper with the skating order for the scrapbook I will make. I'm paying $54 for a ticket, give me my 5 cent piece of paper, dang it!)
The seats were only about 60-70% full, not including the 1/3 of the rink that was blocked off by the stage. There were people who had an entire row to themselves in front of us on the opposite side, which was kind of weird. When we got our seats they said there was no seats before that, however that night there were easily 200-300 seats ahead of us with no one in them (too many to just be people who couldn't show up). There were huge sections of empty seating, which just looked weird because one side of the rink was crammed with people, while the other half looked empty. Strange.
Overall, the show was good, Katya was great and I may get to see her skate more than once this year!! Everyone else have hope that she'll visit your city too, because it looks like she's going to be at a lot of different stops this year! I will try to post my photos soon!! Good night!
the G&G corner - Copyright © Su-jan Yip, September 1996 - 2007