Friends on Ice 2011 shows were held on August 26 - 28 at Shin Yokohama Skate Center. I saw the dress rehearsal (on Aug. 25), the first, the fourth and the fifth (the last) shows.
Opening
First, laser beam showed an encouraging message for the recovery from the disaster on March 11 and then it showed the cast names one after another. "Evan L." was showed at the second from the last, just before "Shizuka A.".
Evan was apparently still learning the choreography of the group numbers at the time of the dress rehearsal. Yuka taught him some movements during the photo shooting. At the first show, he was doing approximately the same with others. But even at the last show, I felt that he was still looking at others occasionally. I think that he was placed at a position which was easy to look at others. At the opening, he was between the choreographers, Yuka and Shae. Yuka seemed to talked to him during the number. After some group skating, each skater did some tricks. Yuzuru showed hydro blading. Yuka showed Ina Bauer. Daisuke did a 3A, Pang/Tong showed an acrobatic lift, and so on. Evan did a spin combination which was like the last spins of his programs.
Hope for Sendai ~ Shizuka Arakawa
A group program with the music of "Smile" dedicated to Sendai which is the hometown of Shizuka and some other skaters. Sendai is the biggest city in the stricken area by the earthquake in March. Four kids from Sendai came first, and then Shizuka, Yamato, Takeshi and Yuzuru, all who have connection to the city, joined them. The men were in white shirt and black pants, and Shizuka was in a beautiful pale pink dress. They all brought black hats and handed them to the kids. Senior skaters skated around the kids with spread eagle and the part was very impressive. Later, they returned them to the seniors. It was followed by Shizuka's beautiful solo skating. It was a very heartwarming number.
Get the Chance: Shoko Ishikawa
Shizuka stayed at the rink entrance and introduced Shoko who was recently selected as a competitor of GP NHK trophy. She is a skater who applied to skate at this show. She skated "Miss Saigon" in a white dress with dark pink flower decoration. It is said that this program was choreographed by Shizuka. I thought that many of her movements resembled Shizuka's very much. She was so appealing and showed nice expression.
Same as past years, taped messages of skaters' own voice were played before their first solo numbers. (except challenge skaters)
Shae-Lynn Bourne
She skated a very danceable number with a cute ethnic dress. Her dance was so dynamic and attracted everyone. She was always very powerful and I was overwhelmed everytime.
Yamato Tamura
He appeared in a black suit with a hat and skated a jazzy number. He doesn't skate at shows very often, but I always admire him to keep in good shape and to show such an entertaining performance. Maybe he is one of the reason why I want to see this show every year.
Akiko Suzuki
She skated her new SP at the rehearsal and skated her new FS at the first and the last shows. The SP was something adult atmosphere. Her new FS is "Die Fledermaus" of Strauss. I love Strauss music very much and I was very glad to have seen it. I think the music is very good for her. I'm looking forward to seeing her at competitions. She skated the very danceable EX program at the fourth show.
Takeshi Honda
His first program was a cool tango music. He showed nice passion and I love his Latin music numbers. He didn't skate this at the last show. I heard that his skating boot had broken and it had been fixed by Nobuo Sato before his turn in the second half.
Yuka Sato
She showed a danceable program in a dark pink dress. Her footwork was light as a feather and her face expression was charming. Later, a man in black tailcoat appeared and it was Andrew Poje. They danced together and did some lifts. At the last show, she skated another program of female vocal. It was nice also, but it was a little pity that we couldn't see Andrew.
Evan Lysacek
In the message before his skating, he specially mentioned about the disaster in Japan, and said that he inspired the strength of the stricken people and he would skate this program for Japanese people.
And he skated "The Climb". I saw this program at live for the first time. I was impressed that his use of upper body had been very much improved than before. It was very artistic and sharp. He was in a black tank top at the rehearsal and in a black long sleeve shirt at the actual shows. I honestly prefer the tank top because it featured the movements of his arms very well, and it was very impressive. I think that he should feature his arm movements more as Tarasova once advised. At the first show, he lost balance a little at a spin. But in other shows, there was no apparent mistake. He didn't do any jumps at the rehearsal, but landed 3F from spiral and 3Lz from spread eagle at the shows. These jumps were solid on the whole at all shows.
Irina Slutskaya
This was the first time for me to see her at live. I was surprised that she was tinier than I had thought. She skated a female vocal music in a blue dress. At first, I felt a little bit the blank of her skating activity. She sometimes had troubles at jumps and somewhat lack of smooth skating. But later, she got much better. She appealed with feminine gestures and landed 3lo from turns and 2A in this program. The audience were very supportive to her, and applauded so loudly when she hit jumps.
Daisuke Takahashi
He showed his new SP. It was an oriental taste music, and it was totally different atmosphere with his last season's program. But I thought this might be his original skating character. Percussion was impressively featured in this program and he performed strong steps with it. How will he progress this during the season? I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Present lottery
By Shizuka, Akiko and Yuzuru with the MC, Mr. Gamada.
Intermission
Mambo collaboration
First, Daisuke, Shizuka started this collaboration program which was an arrangement of Daisuke's Mambo SP. They skated the first part of it and showed 3F combination jumps. Shizuka seems to have landed 3F-3T once, but unfortunately I missed it because I was watching Daisuke at that time. Akiko, and Takahiko came out and they skated together. Takahiko was wearing Daisuke's pink World costume (except at the last show) and he imitated Dai's hairstyle and face by a funny make-up. They skated the same choreography of the original program as much as possible. Akiko exactly imitated the position of Daisuke's doughnut spin. Later, Shae-Lynn, who choreographed his SP, came out and skated the straight line steps with Daisuke. It was the highlight of the program and it made the audience very excited. They did the signature pose at the voice all together, and everyone laughed at it. The whole arena was at the peak of excitement.
Get the Chance: Sara Suzuki
Daisuke introduce her. Maybe she is a novice skater. She skated an exotic music in a blue costume. She could turn in both directions well and her spin positions were beautiful.
Yamato Tamura & Daisuke Takahashi
The MC said that we had seen Daisuke's SP already, so we must want to see his FS also. Then, with the music of "La Strada", Yamato who was dressing as a woman appeared. He was wearing a check blouse of white and black with a red ribbon and navy blue velvet short pants. He reproduced the original choreography very well with more funny and exaggerated gestures. When he fell, Daisuke in the Olympic costume came out with a blanket and covered him with it. Then he skated the program. But Yamato returned at the finish and knocked him down. Daisuke fell and was covered with the blanket. Yamato robbed him of the finish pose. Dai stood up and hit Yamato, but he kissed Dai and made him fall down again. Then, he cover him with the blanket and slipped into it with Dai. The audience kept laughing during this program. At the last show, it was Daisuke who made Yamato fall down and slipped into the blanket at the last.
Yuzuru Hanyu
He skated his SP twice in nice blue and black costume. He landed 4T at the rehearsal and once he skated a perfect SP with 4T-3T and 3A. At another show, he skated his Romeo FS. His looks are a cute young boy, but he has a huge momentum.
Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje
Kaitlyn was in a blue dress and Andrew was in a black tailcoat. They started from the table and chair near the skaters entrance. They skated tasteful 40's atmosphere music elegantly. They looked very gorgeous.
By the way, Andrew was very tall and because of him, Evan didn't look outstandingly tall among the skaters this time. I had a little difficulty to find him during the group numbers.
Takeshi Honda
His second program was tender violin music. His edge work was very fit for this type of music, I think. At the last show when he missed the first solo number, he did a long beautiful spread eagle in this number and it was very much applauded.
Irina Slutskaya
She skated brisker music than the first one. She showed Biellmann spin of both legs in this program. And above all, her cute smiling face was priceless. It made everyone happy.
Takahiko Kozuka
I saw both of his new SP and EX version "Soul Man". His new SP is cool music and according to his comment, it includes all what he can. His steps looked very difficult, but he performed very excellently. I like him skating this type of music. And as for "Soul Man", I prefer this version with vocal than the competition version. He added some funny choreography. In the middle of the program, a man on a front row seat handed a wig to him and he tried it. But he soon returned it and received black sunglasses instead and skated with wearing them.
Qing Pang & Jian Tong
Their progam was romantic Liebesträume in pale purple costumes. The real life couple showed their real love by this program. They expressed it by entire bodies and Qing's face expression was very impressive. Of course, their dynamic twist and throw jump made the audience roar.
Miki Ando
It was my first time to see "Sen no Kaze..." at live. She said that she would skate this with thinking about the disaster. It was a very tender and gentle program. And her strong and smooth footwork expressed it very well. I really loved it. And "Black Swan" was, in contrast, very dramatic and intense as if I was watching the movie. Though I hadn't seen the movie yet, I felt like I could understand the story.
Evan Lysacek
His second number was "Tango de Roxanne". He skated it in the tank top at the rehearsal, but I'm glad that he skated it in the SOI costume. I love that kind of sleeve line with cuffs for him. (The Carmen shirt which is my favorite was same type.) It's good to divide the arm line because his arms are very long. (IMO, dividing arm line is not effective for people whose arms are short.)
He was not the tallest skater in the show this time. But he looked bigger when he was alone on the ice. He handed down at triple flip and doubled a Lutz at the first show. But on Sunday, he skated very greatly in both shows. His body line was featured very beautifully and he brought passion on it. In particular, the step sequence thrilled me. I felt he commanded the arena with his existence and performance. I really love this program.
Shizuka Arakawa
She skated a new program called "Voice". It seems that nature is the theme of it. It was something mystic, but pure atmosphere. She was in a stylish beige dress with dark brown lines. She always skates breathtakingly beautiful, and so she did at this event. Her technique was always great and emotional expression added flavor to it. She took off the thin overskirt later, and some feathers (or fur?) were at her hip. The costume was very nice. At the finish, she went onto the carpet in front of the north super arena seats and strongly ended the program. It was very impressive.
Finale
With the music of "Let The Sunshine In", all cast did the finale. Evan joined it very late, even later than Shizuka, the last solo performer, at the rehearsal and the first show, but he joined earlier on Sunday. Maybe he had learned more choreography. The impressive part was that Shizuka skated among other skaters kneeling down, and skaters by group stood up and did some movements. And the number included some funny choreography, I think. Japanese boys had many kiss marks on their faces. I felt Evan was still looking around at the last show.
After the bow in line, skaters went around the rink, maybe twice. At the last show, I saw Evan ran into the backstage after that. But others stayed the rink and did some encore performance. Mambo music was played and boys tried quads. Yuzuru amazingly landed a clean 4S. I think Daisuke tried 4F, but failed. Some more skaters came out and danced the Mambo and completed the finish pose.
After that, skates began group photo shooting and Evan in a white T shirt returned to the rink side. He was already wearing black normal shoes, not skating boots. After the photo shooting, he exchanged greetings with others. I saw him and a woman (Yuka?) hugging each other. He rushed in to the curtain again after that. The start of the last show was delayed about 15 minutes. If it had begun as scheduled, he might have been able to stay longer. It was regrettable. All skaters except Evan came to the center of the rink and they did the final bow.
The shows were really fantastic, and I would like to say "Thank you!" to the skaters who gathered to this event.
And to the readers of this report, thank you for being interested in this show.