As for my personal feelings about HOI...
I have to admit I wasn't sure if I will travel in France to attend this show or not...first...I'm always very sceptical, when it comes to this kind of shows (very commercial, unknown skaters, cheesy costumes,...). Then, probably partially because of the show, there was a big scandal which I prefer not to comment. I'm only happy everyting seems fine now and all involved persons look happy.
Then, about 3 weeks before the first show in Paris, my boss told me I have to spend that week, working in Paris. It is clear that when I had to be there because of my job, I couldn't finally resist to go there. And I didn't regret at all.
As I said, I didn't expect a lot, but it was a nice surprise for me. The whole show has a great concept...to show skaters life (their ambitions, difficult moments and victories, passion,...) and the backstage of such a show. My favourite part was probably when skaters were on the ice in training clothes, telling their own story.(OTOH, as I check the fan videos of the show, I find it really funny, because they tell all the time the exact same text, even with the same intonation and MG do even the same facial expresions, which is kind of hilarious
)
The scene and the lighting was great, I was a little bit
B-|about some music and especially costumes, though. Especially Marina's final dress was everything, only not worth an olympic champion and main star of the show....that said it is a big improvement, compared to how they dressed Surya and Sarah last year
All the main skaters were really good. I loved the Japanesse Lisa, who I never saw before
, Zaboev was really cool as well. And I really loved Carron/Jones
....They had two great solo performances and appeared in most of group numbers as well. They learnt many of the pairs lifts and all in all, I was never their big fan, but they were really very exciting to watch. I think going pro was a great choice for them and if they continue to create such a strong numbers, they have a great future ahead.
As for Marina and Gwendal, to be honest, at first I was somewhat disappointed, as they almost didn't appear in the group numbers and they did "only" their Flamenco and some mixture of Romeo and Juliet, MITIM, Carmina, Liberta, TTSGB (and I don't know what else I did forgot) to some quite nice music and in Liberta costumes
Thanks again Michele and Gwendal for the precisions concerning this number. That said, when I was thinking about it a little bit more, it makes perfect sens in the context of the whole show. They were discribing their way to succes during the whole show and their performances were very emotional and an amazing tribute to their career. They still have an incredible personality and presence on the ice. It was a big pleasure to see them on the ice again :swoon: and btw they look like they didn't change at all during those 13 years !!!
At the begining they described their starts with different partners. It was weird to see them skate with different partners but a very nice number. Then, before Flamenco, Marina's letter to Gwendal was shown on the screen. Sadly, I never saw them skate Flamenco in competition, but they did really great in this show, skated with tons of fire and passion. Then, in the second part, there was that number, where the skaters presented themselfs andas I said, it was my favourite part of the show. This part ended with the "Liberta mix". I like that Maxime Rodriguez music a lot and the number is very strong ! I would love so much to see the whole dances on the big ice (the small rink size doesn't allow to skate fast, which is a shame) as this program brings so many great memories. All in all, it was very emotional for me, and they seemed very emotional as well.
In the finale, they only appeared at the end to take bows. Then, all the skaters meet the fans for about 5-10 minutes, sign autographs, take pictures with fans. The lucky people who are in the first rows can really enjoy this moment. That said, the organizers make them leave pretty quickly (which is very reasonable, considering they have sometimes 3 shows per day). On the second show I attended, Marina stopped and came back two times to take more pictures with some childrem, which was really lovely.
Btw. the premier show had many VIP guests and all the children (except Lilas) were present. After the show, they ran to give a hug to their parents, which was so cute !!! I wanted to take a picture, but sadly, there were too many people. I have some pictures of Eva and Mick, who, btw, seemed to have a great time during the intermission, jumping axels and laso jumps form the stairs
,... I wanted to make a picture of small Shanelle (who is a very active girl btw.
) as well, as she is completely adorable and super cute, but she was sitting a little bit further on the first show and it was very dark there. OTOH on the second show, she was sitting right under me, so I could have appreciated her lovely blond curls
but I didn't want to bother Gwendal's mum with pictures,... All in all, M and G can be really proud of their beautiful children !!! and of course of their lovely performances. It was really a joy to watch them in the good shape and mood
I uploaded my pictures here
fotki.yandex.ru/users/krenkova-sylva/album/466740/