Choreographer Alexei Zheleznyakov has been working in the world of figure skating for over 15 years and is considered an integral part of Eteri Tutberidze's staff . In an interview with Sport, he told how dancing helped Alexandra Trusova, why you should not criticize the performances of Daniil Gleikhengauz, and how Kamila Valieva survived the Olympic scandal.
— Many coaches note your non-standard approach and therefore attract to work with their groups. Why choose you?
— Athletes are specific people, work in the gym, pumping greatly affect plasticity and emotionality. Yes, many of them bend their backs, have a cool stretch, but they do not have such microplasticity and such high coordination as the same dancers. Many have condom hands, stretched fingers, there is no magical plasticity. Over the years, you begin to notice every little thing that a skater needs. I know a lot of secrets, a lot of interesting tricks, so the uniqueness lies in this technique. at the dancers?- Of course, the skate does not allow you to do as much as on the floor. But when you have high coordination, your brain works in a completely different way. This has a huge impact on technique. Athletes begin to immediately correct those mistakes that the coach points out to them, they glide in a completely different way, they feel the body. In their head, everything turns 180 degrees. And, of course, the dance adds emotionality, the person opens up. As a result, everything results in high components.
— Why, then, did coaches begin to introduce dances into the training process only recently?
— The trend started from the Tutberidze group. The coaches saw that it was thanks to dancing that figure skating had taken a big step forward. Without dancing, a skater is just a skater performing a certain set of elements. Not interested. Everyone wants to see ballet on ice, creativity in the programs, emotionality and at the same time that the skaters perform ultra-c. And without dancing, an athlete simply will not be able to master it.
strong>— If plasticity is not given by nature, is it possible to learn this? teach a bear to dance. It really works. If the teacher is patient and responsibly approaches his work, then everything is possible. It just takes more time and patience. How much depends on the person. Everything is individual.
«Skaters Caged»
—Many skaters like Alexandra Trusova are into Frame Up. Why choose this particular style?
— Dance should bring pleasure, be performed for the soul and psychological relaxation. Skaters have a routine every day. They can even be compared to loaders who carry bags of cement year after year. Skaters have almost the same thing: they are constantly swotting the same elements in order to bring them to the ideal. And dancing is creativity and art.
— Creativity to some extent — for example, when they put on a program. But mostly it's a chore. A lot of skaters are emotionally constrained, they climbed into their cage and do not come out, and different types of dances discharge and liberate them. Dancing instills self-confidence, and this is very important for starts, because your inner state is reflected on the ice. So everything is connected to each other. So I welcome when skaters do different styles, it's great! Let them go to different master classes, try different teachers and expand their horizons.
— Did Frame Up help Sasha on the ice?
— I have always said that Sasha is an athletic athlete. In my opinion, dancing helped her a lot. She became more feminine, the presentation changed. This is an internal state, she began to look for herself, began to open up. A female, feline essence woke up in her. There was already a different view on the ice, and everyone noted this. Alina Gorbacheva, for example, is also an athletic athlete, and she needs dancing like air and water. We worked very closely with her on plasticity, choreography, ear for music, and she really added a lot. This could be seen in the programs this year.
strong>- For example, Tamara Moskvina sees the development of pair skating in quadruple throws. Is it necessary to force the technical complexity without massively raising the level of figure skaters' choreography?- You can do both, as, for example, in the Tutberidze group. We pay a lot of attention to the beauty of sliding, choreography, plasticity of hands. Remember what beautiful hands Kamila Valieva has, how Anna Shcherbakova's body works, correct sliding, ribbing. And all this does not interfere with the study of ultra-si. There is time for technique, but there is time for beauty and componentry.
— In your opinion, is it possible to jump five quads and still keep the composition of the program?
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— Valieva proved that it is possible. Of course, the integrity of the program still suffers a little, because when you go to ultra-c, you need a big run-up. If at this moment you do a bunch of choreography, then you simply won’t be able to enter the jump correctly. But if your body is plastic, you hear music, correctly draw up accents, then even a long run will look beautiful. And if you didn’t do this, then you’ll go on a quadruple like a stick and there will be no beauty left.
«I would create a discipline where you can do everything anything»
— Recently, criticism has been heard against Daniil Gleikhengauz because of supposedly the same type of programs. Do you agree with this?- The feeling of uniformity can also develop because figure skating is, in general, a limited story in motion: there is a certain set of steps that are interpreted in different ways. This limitation, of course, affects the saturation in the choreography. In addition, each athlete has his own specifics. If an athlete is a lyricist in spirit, and you put something creative and dynamic on him, he simply does not roll out and jump out of it. No need to invent a bicycle and break an athlete through the knee.
— Many say that Anna Shcherbakova became a hostage of one image.
“That’s not true, I don’t think so at all. Do you know what is the best indicator? If the viewer gets goosebumps when she skates her program, then it works. Of course, you can try to convey a completely opposite image, but it is better to do this in the beginning in a demonstrative way. And if this has gone on, then next year you can stir up something similar in the main program. But if the coach understands that in the lyrics a person is like a fish in water, why change something. Let it be lyrics for a year, two, three, but effective.
— Anya just had a situation when she was given «Vostok» in the Olympic season, but then changed.- So, it didn’t work, so there were some failures. Maybe she focused solely on the choreography and lost from it in jumping. The coach sees and feels it. An athlete has been used to doing one thing for years, and then he is forced to do something completely different. Of course, things start to fall apart. What is the point, if the main thing is a pedestal and a medal. After all, this is a sport.
— What do skaters lack in their programs now? Aren't everyone tired of the classics?
— Of course, as a choreographer I would like to see more variety. But I have been working in figure skating for so many years that I understand that it will be very difficult to switch to something else. If I were an official in the federation, I would create a third discipline where you can do whatever you want.
— How is the show program tournament?
— This is the right direction, but I would do exactly the third program in the competitive process. And already there, the skaters would be able to show all their dancing abilities, where they would not rest solely on jumps, on elements, on technique, it would be possible to be creative there. Yes, I believe that figure skating needs a new breath and new trends. People demand a spectacle, they are tired of the same thing.
— Camila said that she would very much like to see new styles of dancing on the floor in the programs. Can modern dance fit organically into figure skating?
— They can, they can. But not everyone is given it. Valieva, I think, will cope with this task, because she dances very well on the floor. She owns all styles of dance: hip-hop, vogue — whatever you want. But you need to consider whether this style is suitable for the skate. Experimenting can and should be done.
— Daniil knows a lot of things and can do a lot of things, but he did not go through such a versatile dancer's path as we, choreographers on the floor. Still, we study a lot of stylistics, and Daniil is a director on ice, where there are certain restrictions. If he fails to cope with a certain task, then he can attract a choreographer from outside, for example, me or someone else.
— We have already mentioned Kamila Valieva. This season, Elena Vaitsekhovskaya wrote: «Camila was so good in her first adult season that now all the programs look like an attempt to catch up with some departed image, and so far Camila is losing in this race.» Has the doping scandal affected her as a figure skater? Has Valieva lost her magic?
— Of course, the situation affected her. Who would not be affected by such pressure? She was very worried, and for the first few months it was evident. She withdrew into herself, squeezed and became a different girl. But someone will break down from such a situation, and someone will go this way, chew and spit it out, which she did. She was released. And she hasn't lost her charm. She just matured, puberty began, she gained height, weight, it became more difficult to coordinate her body, because it becomes different. The girl is made out, and this is a normal process. It might have made her feel like she was missing something. But nothing has changed in her working capacity, she began to work even harder and more fiercely in order to catch up with that form. But it is very difficult, almost impossible. You have to remake your body in a different way.
— Can you say that she devoted this season to getting used to her body?
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— It is not possible, but it is necessary, it is.
— If we talk about the phenomenon of Valieva, what is it? Congenital? Workout? Intuition?
— Both. She is a God-kissed girl, this is a huge talent. But Camila is also very able-bodied, which rarely gets along in people. As a rule, very talented children with laziness. They have in their subconscious: why should I work if I will do everything anyway. And if diligence and talent are combined together, then such Kamila Valievs are obtained.
— Will there be someone who can create on the ice just like her?
Do you believe that Camila will be able to avoid disqualification?
>- Due to the political situation, I can not predict anything. We are already just sitting and waiting — come what may.
— That is, she is ready for all scenarios?
— I think, like any person, she hopes for the best that this will all bypass us, but, probably, she preparing for the fact that the opposite may also happen. Camila is a very strong-willed girl and will survive all this, but this is a heavy blow.
—Alexandra Trusova and Anna Shcherbakova are not included in the main team this season. Do you think they will return to the ice?
— It all depends on the girls. If they want to come back, then they will have to work twice as hard, because young athletes are stepping on their heels. If I put myself in the place of Sasha or Anya, I probably would not have returned. Moreover, Anya became an Olympic champion. There is nothing higher than this. I would devote myself to other things. They now have a very busy life, it is very difficult to return to the routine again. Plus, no one guarantees what the result will be, whether you will jump quads again or just break down in the training process. Do they need it?