GOLD WITHIN REACH Nations Cup is held every other year, and
the next international competition will be in Logrono, Spain, in April 2013. In 2011, LAIT earned the silver medal. “Every year it’s harder,” Cole says. “Te idea
is crucial. Te competition is stronger and to keep on top I have to come up with an idea that is so original, deeper, and it has to be real.” Cole still needs to create a choreographic
exercise for Nations Cup 2013 and she hopes the operatic free program they won with at the 2012 National Teatre on Ice Competition in June will translate well internationally. “Everyone has a voice,” Cole says. “It doesn’t matter their age. We develop a program as one.” Team captain Katie Miles, 20, will lead
LAIT when they take the ice in Spain. Miles has been with the team for four years, and in its Notte Sogni free skate, about a young girl’s dreams of opera, she plays a clown. “It’s a journey through all the different types
of opera,” Miles says. “Kind of a twisted night- mare. It starts out happy, and there’s a tango part where we’re all supposed to be very sophisticated and then someone plays the Barber of Seville and then there’s Troy, where we’re all dying and the end is very beautiful. It’s very confused but at the end we all place her in bed and it’s like we were never there.” If the team can improve on its edge quality and basic skating skills, Miles says she thinks they have a shot at the gold. “Te French team that won [in 2011] had gorgeous edges, beautiful bodies and they were so raw with their choreography,” Cole says. “Our American teams are so well-packaged and clean- er. Te Europeans teams are so real, so much deeper and I wish we could embody that.”
TECHNICALLY SPEAKING Like other figure skating disciplines, Teatre
On Ice involves two competition segments. Tere is the choreographic exercise, with specific re- quirements each year, and a free skate. Tis year, the choreographic style is cultural dance and the
Los Angeles Ice Theater performed a collection of opera vignettes for their free skate at the 2012 National Theatre On Ice Competition.
program must also showcase repetition of a motif and various heights of body movement. Both the choreographic exercise and the free skate, which has no required elements, are judged on the 6.0 system. “You really don’t need to jump,” Cole says. “Tey want to see the rapport and cohesion of the team, and the love of skating. Te judges are so excited to be there. It’s just about the love of performing.”
Te most difficult jump in Notte Sogni is
a double flip. Judges discourage highlighting, where one skater takes center stage to perform difficult tricks, with deductions. LAIT receives no funding to compete inter-
nationally. It has one big fundraiser show each year, the Cabaret on Ice, which Cole estimates raises around $5,000. Olympians Evan Lysacek and Mirai Nagasu have skated in the cabaret be- fore.
“I plan to be involved for as long as I can,” Miles says.
As a full-time student at Marymount Col- lege, she is still able to make it to practice every Friday. Te LAIT team practices together once a week, an hour of off-ice training and 90 minutes
As part of its free skate at nationals, Elizabeth Addas, right, and Pamela Langmaier act out a scene from the opera Madama Butterfly.
on ice. “If something were to happen with a job, I
would have to say my time has come,” Miles says. But I would love to still be involved, to come back as a coach or help Danelle. I can’t let it go.” Cole is grateful for the family she’s built
with the team. “I just want to see it succeed,” she says of Los Angeles Ice Theater captured its fifth National Theatre On Ice Competition title earlier this year.
Teatre On Ice. “It’s so much fun and so fulfill- ing. It’s the best thing in figure skating.”
SKATING 15
PHOTO BY JOANNE FUNAKOSHI
PHOTO BY JOANNE FUNAKOSHI
PROEVENT PHOTO
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68