The senior field was large and deep, with many teams skating at a similar skill level and challenging each other for the top spots and even for bragging rights of placing in the to half of the field. It was a night for tangos, with tango programs taking the top two spots.
Kate Slattery and Cheun-Gun Lee started out with a dramatic dance to Phantom of the Opera. They cover the ice powerful and he performs with passionate expression, although the steps could still use more polish and control.
Laura and Jeff Stoveld had some inventive moves and use of musical rhythm but suffered from early-season lack of polish and his fall on their second set of twizzles.
Julia and Philipp Rey looked well-trained and prepared, skating very impressively to a verson of Handel’s Sarabande by Amici, with power, precision, and dramatic expression.
Lia Nitake and Yuri Kocherzhenko’s middle eastern program featured strong twizzles lifts, including the final lift with her holding on with one hand and her other hand and both of his extended free.
Elizabeth Palmer and Jonathan Toman have only been skating together for a couple of weeks, so their brand-new Cirque du Soleil free dance understandably lacked the sureness that would be expected of a program with more mileage on it.
Ariane Morin and David Defazio skated to Carmina Burana with a light, smooth touch across the ice, although also betraying some early-season room for further polishing.
Stephanie Ellis and Ian Ross-Frye’s blues-inflected program showed smooth, deep edges and a sensual feel for the music.
The senior version of Megan McCullough and Joel Dear’s “Harem” program that they used in juniors last year was fluid and polished, with several highlight moves applying cantilever principles to support each other in extreme leaning positions.
Trina Pratt and Todd Gilles’s House of Flying Daggers program featured complex, intricate choreography with many intertwining moves. The difficulty of the steps seemed to take its toll in endurance toward the end of the four-minute program, a minute longer than last year’s junior champions have been used to performing.
Lindsay Evans and Kevin O’Keefe also skated to bluesy music, with inventive lifts and more flow than precision in the steps.
Lydia Manon and Brandon Forsyth’s Romeo and Juliet-themed program featured a complex serpentine step sequence and highlighted her flexibility with several positions holding her blade behind her head in lifts and dance spin, an increasingly popular trend.
Chelsea Williamson and Michael Olson provided the second Phantom of the Opera free dance of the event with an impressive set of side-by-side twizzles in both directions.in which they held one hand in front of their faces on one side.
Charlotte Maxwell and Nick Traxler’s upbeat folk-style program featured several impressive lifts with strong positions and good ice coverage.
Jennifer Wester and Daniil Barantsev charmed the audience with an intricate, playful Russian folk dance with inventive touches such as a hand-to-back-of-skirt hold. Their second set of twizzles, performed in mirror image, showed less unison than the earlier set with raised arms.
Jamie Silverstein and Ryan O’Meara’s winning tango showed deep edges and quick steps and twizzles, highlighted by her expressive use of body movement and facial expressions.
Caitlin Mallory and Brent Holdburg started strong with great flow and speed in the opening moves of last year’s junior Sheherezade program adapted for this year’s senior competitions. They maintained the sense of flow but dropped off in speed as the steps grew more complicated in the step sequences, and she fell out of the ending pose.
The second tango of the evening, taking second place, came from Loren Galler-Rabinowitz and David Mitchell. The detailed, aggressive, percussive choreography featured rhythmic hand claps and expressive wrist undulations.
Kim Navarro and Brent Bommentre skated a dancy, expansive program with deep edges and strong musical expression.
Kendra Goodwin and Chris Obzansky’s exotic, dramatic program suffered from her putting her foot down during the first set of twizzles and from struggles to maintain speed and flow in the complex serpentine steps toward the end. Goodwin and Obzansky recently reteamed after he finished his two-year Mormon mission in the Baltic.