Trevor's Blog

Nations' Cup World Event for Theatre on Ice

Nations' Cup is the international competition for Theatre on Ice, or as it is known in Europe, Ballet on Ice. The team that I am a part of is Creative Ice Theatre, CIT, and at Nations' Cup, we are representing the United States of America.

The Short Program

An image of the CE

In the Short Program, also known as the Choreographic Exercise (CE), all the skaters are dressed in black. Skaters must not wear any make-up and are all to be uniform according to the coaches' standards. Each year, a theme is given for what is to be shown in the CE program. This year's theme is Fantasy and last year's theme was Wind. The reason that the skaters are required to wear black is because skaters are supposed to portray the theme through their movements. Here is a picture of a portion of our team as they approach synchronized double flip jumps.

The Free Program

An image of the Free Program

The Free Program, or Long Program, has a run time of about five minutes. The idea of the Long Program is to portray a story through body movements, skating, make-up and hair design, costumes, and facial expresions. In our Free Program, we tell the story of an old man who remembers his childhood as he sees a creeky old carousel moving in the wind. In the picture, we are forming a carousel that rotates while a little boy rides on top. The Long Program is usually more interesting to watch as there are props and colorful costumes.

The Team

There are 24 skaters allowed on a team in the U.S. At the Nations' Cup event, there are only 20 skaters allowed on the ice which leaves us with four alternates. During each program four different skaters serve as alternates and will only skate if one of the 20 skaters are injured or sick. At Nationals last year, we got second at the Senior level and we were invited to represent Team USA. We are all so excited to be competing at the Nations' Cup Theatre on Ice competition on behalf of Team USA.

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