Friday, 12 February 2010

Ginger Torvill and Fred Dean

So here's something you mayn't know about me... when I was a wee lass, I was OBSESSED with figure skating, I wanted to skate so badly. But the nearest rink was far far away and the whole thing was expensive. SO my mother sent me dancing instead as this was cheaper ( she also sent me to improve my spatial awareness... I was the clumsiest child ever, but thats a story for another day!). Anyway, I still like to watch figure skating, even though I've since forgiven my mother for this early travesty. SO Iwas youtubing some of the teams for the WInter Olympics (woop!!) and came upon this link.

I'm guessing some of you may have heard of Torvill and Dean, one of the most famous Ice Dance pairs ever, and pretty much the only famous British skaters! They won gold in the 1984 WInter Olympics with the first and only perfect score, 12 6.0s! (Their routine Bolero is worth a recce if you've a few minutes to spare, stunning!). But the point of this increasingly longwinded post is as follows.

After the '84 Olympics, Torvill and Dean went pro, and choreographed numerous fantastic ice dance shows. In one they paid tribute to our very own Fred and Ginger, which is the video I came across.

The quality is pretty awful, but I love the music combo they use (Change Partners eeee!) It lovely to see a tribute to the wonderful pair in a different genre, even if they don't entirely capture the essence, any exposure and worship of the classics is good in my book. They manage some on ice tapping which is pretty difficult, Also they do rather a simiilar thing to the lifts at the end of the Yam, towards the end, which I thought was nice! Amusingly, Torvill's feather dress can be seen to shed rather excessively during the Cheek to Cheek section

So here's the video...



Hope this was of interest to some of you! They also tried a second time with a "Putting on the Ritz number, in which I think they're actually more in the style of Fred and Ginger though it's up tempo and shorter.



I enjoyed writing this post, looking forward o the olympics!
Keep it Gingery

Beth XX
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7 comments:

  1. Stefanie Valentine12 February 2010 at 16:22

    Lovely skating, it's a shame that Britain doesn't have better skaters. The ones that we have are ok, but not amazing.
    I love watching T&D's routines on Dancing On Ice, i wish i could skate! xx

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  2. BethRose12 February 2010 at 16:45

    Totally! I love t one tey did this week, thouh I got annoyesd that I missed bits when they kept cutting to pixie lott!

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  3. Betsy12 February 2010 at 17:05

    I'm a figure skating fan too!! My favorites of all time are G&G (Sergei Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva) and I've followed Katia's career as she went on to singles skating after Sergei's death. I've been such a bad skating fan though, I haven't paid attention to any skating this season and even had to Google who won US Nationals to see who was on the Olympic team! Yikes! But don't forget Steven Cousins, he's such a delight to watch perform even if he's not in the same technical calibur as say Ilia Kulik or Kurt Browning.

    Those were delightful videos! A must see for any Ginger fan, and to be a fan of skating too just makes it double special.

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  4. ALD129612 February 2010 at 20:47

    These are amazing! Thanks for sharing :D

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  5. VKMfanHuey13 February 2010 at 06:45

    ...That was killer! I have never really followed ice skating much, but do know of Torvill and Dean - I sorta remember them tearing up the '84 Olympics... the only other time I remember following skating (unfortunately) is during the 'Tonya Harding / Nancy Kerrigan' saga... sad, but that Olympics was the most watched winter version EVER...

    It IS cool to see folks interpreting GandF in a routine... Thanks for the videos!

    And, hope all is well in BethWorld!!! BTW - did you go see Lauren's entry in the Gorg 'new header' contest'? you can go vote for it - it's #4... hopefully you can get to it w/o links...

    VKMfan
    -----

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  6. SassyGinger19 February 2010 at 13:58

    Im sure you were watching the skating last night. How much fun was the men's competition? Everyone is going crazy around here for Evan because he's a local boy - born and trained in Naperville, IL!

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  7. KerrieGrant20 February 2010 at 16:56

    Beth,

    What a great post! As a HUGE Torvill and Dean fan, I enjoyed seeing them acknowledge Ginger and Fred. I'll never forget the Olympics and Bolero. Everything about the performance was excellent: the way they looked together, the fantastic choreography, and of course their superb skating skills. I enjoyed these clips, and, of course, I had to find a YouTube clip of Bolero and enjoy it once more. Thanks!

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