Germany Tour 2007

The Germany Tour 2007 consisted of three shows only again. That’s too bad, because it is a nice show and it would deserve more attention. It’s difficult to understand, why the interest is so low, because Germany has successful skaters. Ironically, the tour started to shrink to only three shows in 2004, the year Worlds were held in Germany and German skaters won two bronze medals.
The tour started in Jonsdorf. Jonsdorf is in the “far east” of Germany , close to the boarder to the Czech Republic and Poland . It’s an idyllic holiday village, and it has a rather new ice rink. Some participants flew into Dresden , others took the train or came by car. There were practices on Friday, April 6 when Jenny Brett-Weiss choreographed the opening and finale numbers and took care of the artistic side of the show in general. I arrived on Friday evening. I also caught a plane to Dresden and travelled by train for two more hours to Zittau, where the hotel was.

The first show was on Saturday, April 7. The rink was full, but it only seats about 1,000 people (I’m not sure how many seats they have exactly). It was less cold than usual in Jonsdorf!
Here is a list of the music and programs (in random order).

Kristin Wieczorek, German Champion
1) „Listen“ by Beyonce Knowles (from „Dream Girls“). A lyrical song. She was wearing a pink costume (one of her favourite costumes, as she told me). She did double Axels. Kristin choreographed this program herself and you could see how much she enjoyed it.
2) Wipe out (“Dirty Dancing”). This was fast and upbeat. Kristin wore short pants and a top. I liked the first program better for her, this one seemed a bit empty.

Megan Wing/Aaron Lowe (Canada)
1) Cheek to Cheek by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. They said they’re “retiring” this program after the Germany Tour. The program suited them well. It was romantic and soft. She wore a long dress.
2) “If we only knew” by Jarvis Church . A “bluesy” song.

Nelli Zhiganshina/Alexander Gazsi, German Ice Dancing Champions
1) Tango OD. I was happy for them that they got the opportunity to skate in these shows. They don’t have much experience this being their first international season. Nelli is a very expressive and talented young dancer. She captures the rhythm and the music right away. I noticed how fast she understood what she had to do in the opening and finale group numbers. Alex is a good partner for her. They are a good match. Nelli is now learning German. She already understands a lot but is too shy to speak.
2) Over and Over by Frank Sinatra. They put this new exhibition program together in Berlin shortly before the beginning of the tour. It was a good choice for them.

Tomas Verner (Czech Republic)
1) Toccata and Fugue by Vanessa Mae, his short program. Tomas is fast and explosive. I didn’t mind seeing his short program again. Obviously he didn’t do the competition jump content.
2) Pink Panther. This is his exhibition program of the season, and it’s excellent. The footwork is great. It’s a fun program and he obviously is enjoying it. The audience loved it.

Stefan Lindemann (Germany)
1) Robot City . Stefan also used his short program. I liked it better than his free program this season. 
2) Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. A romantic song. Stefan can interpret this kind of music much better than many people expect him to.

Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy (Germany)
1) Leningrad by Chris de Burgh. This was my favourite program of the show. It was just lovely. The song is a bit kitsch, but who cares. She wore a pink dress. First he is skating alone and “discovers” an old “photograph” on a chair, then the memories come back, and Aliona is the girl from the past. They did a cool dance lift (level four, I guess! – serpentine+rotational lift sort of) and the throw double Axel. The lift was wobbly, but they repeated it as an encore and did it much better.
2) Somewhere (from West Side Story). This is the program they have been using earlier this season in exhibitions. It’s also very nice. At the end, Ingo Steuer comes out on to the ice and the three of them perform a program together to a song of Xavier Naidoo “Was wir nicht alleine schaffen, das schaffen wir zusammen” (What we can’t do on our own we’ll do together). The audience obviously understood the message and gave them a long applause. I suppose, everybody in the rink knew the story about Ingo Steuer. On the one hand it was a good idea and the audience seemed to like it. On the other hand I felt Ingo was skating too much with Aliona. They should have done more together or Robin should have skated more with Aliona. Ingo and Aliona performed some trademark lifts of his time with.

Karel Zelenka (Italy)
1) Italiano by Toto Cotunio. The program with the guitar and the mobile phone. He throws the phone away and then we didn’t find it right away! It had slipped under a box in the corner of the rink.
2) Played-A-Life by Safri Duo. He used this program in exhibition before as well.

Rory Burghart (USA)
1) Crazy by N. Barkley. She is very elegant and musical. The crowd of course loved her back flips. It was nice to see her again, I hadn’t seen her in like three years.
2) Last Dance by Donna Summers.

Violetta Afansieva/Pete Dack (Russia/ Canada) 

1) “The Hunter” Kodo Drums. Finally I got to see them live. I had to write sometimes little profiles on them for Daniel’s shows, but so far I never saw them. She does impressive things with these Hoola Hoops.
2) Pistolero (Once Upon a Time in Mexico ).

We travelled by bus from Jonsdorf to Ravensburg (nine hours!) for the second show on Sunday. The last show was in Bad Liebenzell on Monday. There was good crowd in these two cities as well. The rinks were full, but again, they are pretty small. I still hope that the Germany Tour one day will consist of seven to ten shows again.