My Take: Bourne and Nichol Inspire Rochette
Joannie Rochette was more than 13 points ahead of Mao Asada when she won the Trophée Eric Bompard Cachemire competition last weekend. More than 13 points ahead of a world champion. That must be music to the ears of the Canadian champ from Île-Dupas, Quebec, who looks like a different woman on the ice this year. She’s been calm, confident, relaxed and polished, right from the start of the season.
One can’t help but think that choreographers Shae-Lynn Bourne and Lori Nichol must have something to do with it. Rochette has always skated to beautiful choreography, but this year’s line-up is extraordinary. Here’s what Rochette says on her website about working with Lori Nichol, another Canadian who became a figure skating household name after choreographing programs for Michelle Kwan from 1995-2001:
“Lori creates a program like nobody else I previously worked with. She really did the choreography with the moves that suited best my style and natural movement. I was amazed at her attention to technical details like adding the most difficult jump entry and exit possible and counting with such precision the amount of crossovers during the program. Work days are incredibly long and demanding with her since we can easily spend 7 hours on the ice, working on the program. In short, it turns out to be the most challenging long program I’ll ever have skated to.”
After my previous post about ‘retiring’ famous figure skating music, I was interested to read Rochette’s take:
“For the music, I’ll do my first contribution to what we could call “figure skating’s all-time greatest hits” with Aranjuez. I see it as a very interesting challenge to skate on a well-known music that I’ll have to make my own. I hope that after this season, people will be able to associate it to some moment I’ll have created on the ice when they’ll hear it again.”
With the Olympics just 15 months away (dare I say it!), Rochette is well positioned to be a podium favourite, especially with with the help of sophisticated, complex choreography from Bourne and Nichol.