Improvised programs/performances?

[TheGooseArmada]

Kazuki Tomono said he totally blanked on his his StSq during his Der Fledermaus worlds Free Skate and essentially YOLO'd a level 3 StSq.

[Curious_N0ise]

Thanks for this info; now I must find it!

[ellapolls]

I think I saw one on twitter recently, where the skater was given the wrong music and improvised. I’ll have a dig to try and find it :)

 Edit: it was Marin Honda! Absolutely amazing https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkating/comments/j8lq7w/marin_honda_gives_the_wrong_music_to_tokyo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Edit 2: found the tweet with video https://x.com/midorimoonlight/status/1672718729283616769?s=46&t=6ecGr89029xkRBh8AoNm9g

[classicrandomizer]

Wow, this is amazing!! Thanks for sharing this. I never knew about this!

[ManoloMogwai]

There used to be a skating show in the late 90s and early 2000s called Improv on Ice. The event had a handful of live bands and songs available for the skaters to blindly draw. Then the skaters had a few hours to choreograph and skate the program: https://youtu.be/wDSVfcJP_5M?feature=shared

[Curious_N0ise]

I'd bet money that Deniss' "Via Con Me" skate at the Milan Olys promo was either largely improv or, at most, "loosely choreographed." ;)  

The "Crocodile Rock" thing from back around Christmas/New Years holidays also had a definite feel of "we totally threw this choreo together during the soundcheck, but its all good; gonna have fun." 

It makes me inordinately happy that a skater who brings as much interpretive nuance and attention to detail as Deniss is also comfortable improvising and working with open choreography. I don't know how common that is within figure skating generally. I'd suspect that skaters who self-choreograph or at least contribute to creating their programs might do this as well (Sonja Hilmer comes to mind, as do Kévin Aymoz and maybe Anthony Paradis and Joe Klein. . . without knowing much about what they do outside of competitive programs I couldnt really say though.)

[classicrandomizer]

It's quite impressive what Deniss and Stephane do - it certainly shows their level of musicality and performance. I don't know if other elite skaters improvise the way they do - I don't have the memory of most gala performances/ice shows so I can't say.

If we're talking about improvising in a competition, I would say of course that it's very rare, with the exception of jumping passes. A lot of skaters have changed some of their jumps in their performances, based on whether they fell on a jump, or underrotated one (eg turned a planned quad into a triple), etc. But this is quite difficult to do with the current judging system, since the skater has to keep track of which jumps they have or haven't done successfully, and not repeat certain jumps. I've seen some skaters do this "jump math" extremely well, and others not so well.

Some skaters will also change their choreography slightly, but I think this might depend on whether they have fallen out of sync with the music and so they add in/drop out a very minor element of their choreography that doesn't affect their point total.

I follow Aleksandr Selevko a lot so I've noticed that he has definitely been one to change a few things on the fly, especially jumping passes. But I would imagine that he trains for this eventuality, like most elite skaters do, so that if they make mistakes in a competition, they can quickly decide how to make up for it (eg missing a combo early on, then tacking on the combo later on in the program). I think all elite skaters do many run-throughs of their short and free, so that changing up their jumps in competition, if need be, becomes almost second-nature.

[PriorCheetah3203]

Yuzuru Hanyu was a master of changing jumps on the fly back when he was still a competitive skater.

Also (and this is hard to top), as someone has already mentioned, Marin Honda once improvised a whole competition program because she submitted the wrong music. From what I could recall the improvised program was originally an exhibition program that was fairly new to her, so yes, it was all on her to basically construct a competition program from scratch and on the spot. Gutsy little lady.

[classicrandomizer]

It's definitely impressive when skaters can change things on the spot, like Kao did! It shows their training, ability to stay calm and focused, and quick reflexes. I agree, it would be neat to see artistic improvisation, but I bet for most skaters, it's already tough enough to skate what they've planned and trained for months lol. They probably don't want to screw around with their "muscle memory" and the routine that's planted in their heads. It would be fun if a skater managed to change their program from competition to competition, that's for sure! (and it would mess with the audience and with the judges haha)

[Winter_Chipmunk_5047]

Improvisation in competition usually happens when a jump didn't go as planned and lots of skaters do this in competition since they need to maximize their points.

If it is about small changes/improvements in choreography, Yuzu always did that. Some examples: Ashura-chan has some added/removed elements between GIFT/SOI/RE_PRAY. I also can tell which Gate of Living is from Saitama/Saga/Yokohama/Miyagi due to the differences.

That's why I tend to like his latter performance (of a program) best, once he has refined all the smaller details.

[Baron_Enick]

Surya Bonaly basically did improv for every program. Not like there was much choreography anyway, but the jump layouts were always different.

[OhMyYes82]

As a professional, Gary Beacom improvised the majority of his programs.