Behind the Program, Ep. 1: Paul and Islam, 2015 Free Dance

by Jacquelyn Thayer

After disappointing results on the Grand Prix circuit, 2015 Canadian bronze medalists Alexandra Paul and Mitch Islam made a bold move to regroup before those national championships: swapping out a jazzy Frank Sinatra free dance, choreographed by Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, for a turn to the contemporary — an adaptation of a prior exhibition to Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” created by Jeff Buttle in 2012.

While touches of Buttle’s original choreography remain, the now Detroit-based team called upon former coaches from Barrie’s Mariposa School of Skating for assistance in developing the new piece, with choreographer Kelly Johnson creating an expanded effort more suited for competition. Islam’s father David, the couple’s previous head coach, mapped out a layout for early elements while Johnson was overseas accompanying students to competition. “When I returned from Europe I started from the beginning and filled in all the blanks choreographically, so to speak,” she said.


Gala performance at the 2012 Nebelhorn Trophy. Video by Tatjana2541.

“In the end we were only able to use about 30 seconds of the original choreography, but they were two of the sections that we really loved because they had such a great contemporary and free movement to them,” said Johnson. “That was our goal in this free dance — to create a program that flowed well with passion, speed, freedom of movement and a contemporary feel with an obvious storyline.”

The change in movement styles from one free dance to the next posed minimal problem for the team. “For us, it wasn’t that difficult because it was a show program,” said Paul. “Most of the actual dance sections to it are from the show number that Jeff Buttle had choreographed, so we’d worked on them a fair amount before and we worked on it a lot off the ice to try to get the movement to its fullest extent, so translating it onto the ice was actually quite a simple process.”

With the departure of moments like the exhibition’s sometime overhead lift — illegal in ice dance — came also the incorporation of an additional minute of music in the form of a faster-paced opening section, edited from the show cut, used to set the circular step sequence; an audible beat over the final 45 seconds; and more required elements than the original program’s few lifts. And inclusion of spins and step sequences was more involved a process than simply carrying over the previous free dance’s options.


Free dance at the 2015 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

“It kind of happened by listening to the music,” said Paul, “and seeing which elements we had done before and which ones we had done this season already that suited the music best. We didn’t want to just put in all of our elements from this season’s free dance and hope that they went with the music — we really wanted to find something that complemented the music, not the things that we knew that we had already done this year. We wanted it to really match the music and be made for the music.”

“Also, after the Grand Prix, we kind of reassessed where our elements were, and decided which ones were working for us and which ones weren’t,” added Islam. “Sometimes when that happens, going back to the way you used to do it, a way that was tried and true and was giving you the marks, can be a wise decision.”

And changing programs, too, meant changing wardrobe. While for Islam the move meant a return to the show program’s standard costume, Paul adopted an original design, moving from Sinatra’s flashier gold dress to a simpler, streamlined black piece inspired by off-ice ballet and contemporary wear.

“We had done the free dance in just practice clothes, obviously, since we had it made late, and we loved how it looked on the video when we’d be filming sessions — how you could just see everything and all of our lines were so defined in just regular practice clothes,” said Paul. “I actually designed the bodysuit of the dress after a bodysuit that I have that I wear to practice quite often that I absolutely love wearing, and the skirt kind of came from [coach] Angelika [Krylova]’s idea — she wanted some color offset to it so we weren’t just wearing black, so it was really her idea to add some color into it and really just make it look like a contemporary dance dress — nothing too flashy or too many sparkles all over.”

Despite the short turnaround time from program development to Nationals debut, the couple views the new free dance’s positive reception and good first performance as building blocks for their next two international events, including this week’s Four Continents Championships.

“This new program, one of the reasons I think it really works for us, is because the contemporary/modern kind of style is something that comes very naturally to us,” said Islam. “It’s something that accentuates our long lines and this program really allows us to skate and be free with our movement and our skating itself. So I think that’s why this program has sort of evolved as quickly and as well as it has — it’s just been one of those things that’s happened naturally and we’re very fortunate that it’s been going that way.”

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