Ergative AbsolutiveOk, pairs free dance now! Wolfkostin/Chen start off. Poor kiddies. I thought the twizzles were rough, and then Chen actually fell over during the rotational lift. Actual falls don't happen much in ice dancing. But they're young; still learning. They'll get better.
Orihara/Pirinen: @clhellisen is this the team you thought was siren-tempting-sailor? I see it. I like it.
Okay, next we have Komatsubara and Koleto. Koleto looked VERY uncomfortable in the enforced Latin style rhythm dance. This is because he is a complete nerd who would prefer to skate to the opera music from The Fifth Element. Commentators at a previous event were a bit perplexed at the music choice, but that is because they were philistines who did not recognize greatness when they saw it.
No images, alas, because they're not on youtube yet, and Discovery+ doesn't allow screenshots. phooey.
THEY DID THE BLUE SINGER LADY'S ARM MOVEMENTS IN THEIR CHOREOGRAPHY. God, I love this programme. It brings me back to a very specific period of my youth. The Fifth Element really was a perfect movie.
Oh, and I didn't see it until the replay, but they also do Leeloo's backwards jump into traffic, incorporating it into a lift. This programme is so perfect.
'Interesting composition', says the commentator. PHILISTINES ALL OF THEM!!
All right, now we have Wang and Liu, doing Batman. Liu has a massive bat wing across his chest. Some awesome lift positions, but no screenshots possible.
Lopareva/Brissaud: Classy and classical. I like their speed. This is always a fun lift. Looks wildly uncomfortable for the poor fellow (those blades are SHARP), but looks really cool for me, the spectator.
Muramoto/Takahashi, doing Phantom of the Opera. This is my favourite variant of the lift that Lopareva/Brissaud did earlier. These two are so dramatic! I love them.
Reed/Ambrulevicius going full emo goth, with a side of interpretive dance team. I like this choreo move: it's very rare for the woman to be the supporting partner in this type of configuration.
Once, back in the 90s, there was an ice dance team where the woman lifted the man on her hip, and I have always wanted to see that done again. But I never have.
Reed/Ambrulevicius again, because this is just so cool. Ice dancers do the coolest things with balance points.
Oh no. Green/Parsons are doing Rhapsody in Blue. I once worked briefly in a job that required me to spend enormous amounts of time on hold with United Airlines, and the music has been poisoned for me ever since.
To be fair, they did do an exquisite job of it.
This is classed as a rotational lift, but I think that Green is doing most of the work here. It's hard to see in a still image, but her hip is not braced on Parsons' knee. That's all core strength keeping her parallel to the ice, plus maybe a bit of help from Parsons' right hand.
Ah, Chock/Bates will always be an alien and an astronaut in my headcanon, but one of the pieces in their free programme this season is called Les Tectoniques, and the costume does make me think they might be going for magma + continental plates as their theme. I can dig it.
And at last we have Fournier-Beaudry and Soerensen. They did not think the Latin requirement for the short programme was excessive, and so have doubled down with a tango-type thing combined with Spanish guitar+moonlight sonata (???) for the free dance. It's good, but I prefer Chock/Bates myself. I think they'll both end up at the finals, so we'll see who comes out on top then.
CL_Hellisen