Davis/White 2013-2014赛季 短舞蹈：《窈窕淑女》自由舞：《天方夜谭》

来自Icenetwork.com 2013.8.27 的消息：美国冰舞组合Davis/White终于公布了2013-2014赛季的比赛节目信息。短舞蹈音乐来自经典音乐剧：《窈窕淑女》，自由舞则是花样滑冰赛场的经典名曲：《天方夜谭》。

报道指出，祖姨妈早在2年前就开始为D/W准备这支《天方夜谭》的自由舞了。节目已经在科泉的训练营展示给了ISU的技术专家并获得了好评。他们的短舞蹈节目的音乐来自于音乐剧《窈窕淑女》中的3个音乐片段。其中的芬兰快步舞部分是音乐剧中经典的旋律“I Could Have Danced All Night《我准能跳通宵》“。

此外，D/W已经练习了全新的托举动作，他们将参加9月11日在盐湖城开幕的B级赛”U.S. International Figure Skating Classic“ 展示他们全新的节目。

原文：
Davis, White mine Middle East for new free dance
Team to skate to 'My Fair Lady' for short, 'Scheherazade' for free Posted 8/27/13 by Lynn Rutherford,



Meryl Davis and Charlie White's free dance this Olympic season has been one thousand and one nights in the making, and with a little bit of luck, it will lift them to the top of the podium in Sochi.

The world ice dance champions will perform to Nikoli Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, the tale of a Persian sultan who has vowed to execute each of his wives after the first nuptial night. His bride Scheherazade weaves stories that keep the sultan entertained for 1,001 nights. Finally, he resolves to spare her life and make her queen.

The music long ago cast its own spell on the skaters and their coach, Marina Zoueva.

"Even as far back as four or six years ago, any time we heard it, we talked about how much we loved it," Davis, 26, said. "It gave us chills. Now, we feel like we can do it justice."

"Obviously, it's great music, and more than that, we always felt the connection," White, 25, said. "Marina felt it suited us perfectly. We considered using it last season, but it's just too perfect as an Olympic program."

Zoueva began planning the music cuts and visualizing lifts more than two years ago.

"They are just the images of Scheherazade; it suits them perfectly," she said. "You can see Meryl playing this part right away. If you imagine any ice dancers in the world skating to this music, you can see Meryl and Charlie would be the best at it."

In performing Scheherazade, Davis and White follow in the footsteps of Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert, their fellow five-time U.S. champions who interpreted the music at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, where they placed fourth. Later that season, they won their second of three world bronze medals.

Blumberg, an ISU technical specialist, was on hand at last week's Champs Camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., and also visited Davis and White at their training home in Canton, Mich.

"She was able to come to the rink several weeks ago," Davis said. "We were honored by her positive feedback."

In the run-up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Davis and White turned to Indian dance instructor Anuja Rajendra to help lend authenticity to their popular "Bollywood" original dance. To capture the nuances and gestures unique to Persian cultural dance, they are working with Kendra Ray, a Detroit-based instructor and belly dance performer.

"There's a special sparkle that comes with Persian cultural dance," Davis said. "It's kind of the way the women have some mystery about them.

"We want to capture not only the choreography but the essence and style of the dance, so both of us -- and particularly me -- have been working with [Kendra]," Davis continued. "In the minds of some of us in the U.S., it might be hard to distinguish between Middle Eastern, belly and Persian dance, and this has helped us with the Persian dance specialty and cultural context."

For their short dance to quickstep and foxtrot rhythms, they're sticking a bit closer to home, with selections from Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, including "I Could Have Danced All Night," "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me to the Church on Time."

"Our approach is to try to capture the feeling Eliza Doolittle had when she sang 'I Could Have Danced All Night,' which is really the song the short dance is focused on," Davis said.

"As the ISU has said, the quickstep is all about champagne -- a bubbly, happy feeling, like the essence of 'I Could Have Danced All Night,'" White said.
The skaters studied the 1964 Audrey Hepburn-Rex Harrison movie but are not interpreting the story literally.

"Our characters very much interact in a way that resembles Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins, but we've taken some liberties," Davis said.

"I'm the guy who's there to be at the ball with her," White said.

Zoueva's goal with My Fair Lady was to give her skaters characters to play.

"They can explain the relationship between the man and woman," she said. "They have a whole concept for the short dance. From beginning to end, you can follow the story."

Davis and White's training partners and rivals, Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, debuted their short dance to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald jazz selections in Montreal earlier this month. As Zoueva explained, she took a completely different approach with the Canadians' program.

"They have a very jazzy foxtrot and quickstep, which is the new era for ballroom [dancing]," she said. "Meryl and Charlie are strictly classical ballroom."
The skaters, along with Zoueva and their other coaches, Johnny Johns and Oleg Epstein, have been hard at work in Canton designing new lifts.

"I think part of what makes each year exciting and different is coming up with new lifts," White said. "At a certain point, it becomes, 'How can we top the lifts we've done before?' "

"We started thinking about it over a year ago, which really helped us design lifts that are challenging but still match the program," he continued. "At this point, we're past the worry stage. Now it's just a matter of training and perfecting the programs."

Davis and White will debut their programs at the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic in Salt Lake City, Sept. 11-15. There, they will face a strong field, including Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje (fifth in the world last season) and former European champions Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat of France. Their other training partners, U.S. bronze medalists Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani, will also compete there, as will Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan Giulietti-Schmitt, and Anastasia Cannuscio and Colin McManus.

White thinks he and Davis are primed and ready for the early start.

"Champs Camp is an invaluable opportunity to show the programs, and obviously we got good feedback," he said. "[The judges] feel that, for this point in the season, we're in a good place. Of course, there was some constructive critique, which we openly received, but most input was overwhelmingly positive.

"We feel great about these programs. There is no reason they cannot be just as special, if not more special, than our other great programs."

一千零一夜啊，很适合DW，异域风情啊~~~脑补ing

天方夜谭基本上是最受欢迎的年曲，每年都有选手用，希望DW突破性的新意。

这首曲子很少有冰舞滑吧，期待他们的节目

Icenetwork.com 2013.9.12对D/W的报道：
文章谈及了他们准备两支舞蹈的幕后故事，为了演绎好自由舞《天方夜谭》他们专门邀请了波斯舞演员Kendra Ray对他们进行指点，而短舞蹈《窈窕淑女》将会是一支非常具有活力的舞蹈。

原文：

Davis, White seek help in perfecting Persian dance
Belly dancer Kendra Ray lends authenticity to 'Scheherazade' program
Posted 9/12/13 by Lynn Rutherford, special to icenetwork



This season, Meryl Davis and Charlie White don't want to simply skate their free dance. They want to weave a story worthy of Scheherazade, the young bride of a murderous Sultan whose stories so captivate her husband each night, he can't bear to execute her the next morning.

When the world ice dance champions debut their program to Rimsky-Korsakov's exotic masterpiece in Salt Lake City on Saturday, their trademark precision and power will be on display, presented to full advantage by Marina Zoueva's choreography. With the help of Kendra Ray, they will also tap into some of the mystery and nuance of Persian dance.

Ray, a longtime student and practitioner of Middle Eastern dancing who performs at Arab-American cultural events throughout Michigan, began working with the team early this summer. Zoueva had long planned Scheherazade for the team's second Olympic season, so when the choice was finalized this spring, the skaters sought out an expert who could advise on Scheherazade's cultural context.

"As a trained belly dancer, I have been influenced by many, many Middle Eastern cultures, so first we had to decide which we were going for," Ray said. "It was my suggestion to stick with the Persian version, because it is the oldest and most widely known."

In this style, hand motions, hip undulations and facial expressions are emphasized. Working with Davis, Ray touched on these but kept the focus on character development.

"When you look at the storyline, there is this journey of emotions," she said. "Here is this woman who is literally risking her life to try to influence this king not to kill her. That's a pretty heavy role to play."

Ray, who has worked extensively with film and music video performers, was impressed with Davis' nimble intellect.

"We got into the aesthetic that is Persian dance but did it in a way that's natural, because she is playing a character expressing herself in a way that is her first language," she said. "Meryl absorbs things and analyzes them and processes them, all within an instant. Some people will just nod and smile and do enough to get by. Not Meryl."

As for White, he's given the unsympathetic task of portraying a king so betrayed by his first wife's infidelity that he has killed all the women who followed.

"The biggest thing for Charlie was to really be clear in the emotional delivery," Ray said. "He has to be a tough guy and put on a good poker face. If he even gave Meryl's character the privilege of eye contact, it should be noticeable. He is this murderous king whose heart is only now being touched by this woman."

Ray visited Davis and White's home rink, the Arctic Edge in Canton, Mich., where she watched practices and then added subtle touches to make the characters more authentic.

"Of course, it's ice dance, so when you see the program, you don't think, 'Oh wow, that's straight Persian dancing,'" Ray said. "What I did was study the choreography, help highlight certain movements and add a bit of nuance to Marina's already amazing program, so it's a modern interpretation of a Persian form."

"Both Meryl and Charlie are so receptive to feedback," she continued. "They're so adaptable, to the point where they almost make it look too easy. It's a mark of their professionalism and their class and their respect for not only the art of what they are doing but for those who are trying to help them. ... To top it off, they are warm and kind hearted."

On Friday, Davis and White will debut their short dance, choreographed by Zoueva to Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady. It features two sequences of the Finnstep, a challenging pattern dance based on a charming program created by Finnish ice dancers Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko in the 1990s.

"It's a fun and fast dance; you have to be quick on your feet, which is something Charlie and I like to think is one of our specialties," Davis said at U.S. Figure Skating's Champs Camp in late August.

"It's a matter of getting the timing and feel for it," White said. "I wouldn't say anything is too, too tricky."

Beyond the steps, they're looking forward to capturing the essence of the musical.

"It's been a piece Marina suggested for us for a couple of years," Davis said. "She wanted us to have a story and [play] characters who relate to the music instead of [doing] typical ballroom."

"The songs ("I Could Have Danced All Night" and "With a Little Bit of Luck") are recognizable and, obviously, there is singing," White said. "Meryl does such a great job of interpreting that, it sort of makes the program become more alive."

The five-time U.S. champions are joined in Salt Lake City by Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan Giulietti-Schmitt, who skated impressive programs at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships in July, including a free dance choreographed by coach Igor Shpilband to Spartacus. Anastasia Cannuscio and Colin McManus, sixth here last season, will show their free dance to An American in Paris.

Davis and White's training partners, Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani, had hoped to compete here but withdrew after Alex tweaked his neck in practice. They are replaced by another Canton team, Alissandra Aronow and Collin Brubaker, eighth at the 2013 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

The biggest competition for the U.S. teams will undoubtedly come from Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje, the three-time Canadian silver medalists who placed fifth at the 2013 World Figure Skating Championships.

Davis/White短舞蹈 《窈窕淑女》首演 2013.9.13
2013 U.S.International Figure Skating Classic

Charlie White & Meryl Davis 2013-14赛季自由舞《天方夜谭》首演
2013 U.S.International Figure Skating Classic 2013.9.14

这自由舞简直是神的衔接。