{"id":2844,"date":"2014-06-25T23:50:22","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T23:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/2014\/06\/25\/orford-and-williams-expand-their-horizons\/"},"modified":"2014-06-25T23:50:22","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T23:50:22","slug":"orford-and-williams-expand-their-horizons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ice-dance.com\/site\/orford-and-williams-expand-their-horizons\/","title":{"rendered":"Orford and Williams Expand their Horizons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"13CdnNat-SrFD-5073-OW-MHby Jacquelyn Thayer | Photos by Melanie Hoyt<\/p>\n

Summer training at the Vancouver Ice Dance Academy provides Canadians Nicole Orford & Thomas Williams a welcome chance for exploration in their off-ice dance work, which during the season focuses intensively on ballet and, as necessary, ballroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur summer schedule\u2019s a little bit different,\u201d Orford said. \u201cWe have a dance class five times a week. It\u2019s a different class every day, like in the past we\u2019ve had ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, Broadway, and then another ballet or just a bunch of different types of dance. So it kind of shakes it up, because all through the year we\u2019re only doing ballet, so it\u2019s nice to have the Broadway or the hip-hop, something a little different.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a shake-up of sorts is also marking the team’s efforts towards their new competitive programs. For the first time, they’ve worked with a choreographer other than coaches Megan Wing & Aaron Lowe. Mark Pillay, best known for efforts with skaters like Kirsten Moore-Towers & Dylan Moscovitch and Richard Dornbush, is now making his first incursion into ice dance.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Orford notes that she and Williams have always played a key role in program creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually it’s like a collaboration\u2014everybody. Thomas and I are looking for music, Megan and Aaron are looking for music, and we all bring stuff to the table, and it\u2019s whatever we all agree is best for us. Sometimes they have a very different idea than we do, but we always end up really loving whatever they suggest. Last year, for both our programs, we chose the music,\u201d she said. \u201cOther years, it’s been something they’ve brought to the table.”<\/p>\n

“And they’ve given us a just a kind of guideline of what their idea looks like, what kind of music to look through,” Williams continued. “This year was different, though.”<\/p>\n

This year Pillay proposed the music and concept\u2014selections from 1997\u2019s Titanic\u2014to Wing & Lowe, who passed it along to an enthusiastic Orford & Williams. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we’re hoping is going to become a strength is our connection,\u201d Orford said, \u201cbecause I feel like with this music, it’s so important. Everybody knows the story of Titanic, and Jack and Rose, so we’re working on having those moments in the program where people can really feel the connection. I know something we’ve always had to work on is a realistic connection between the two of us, but we’re working on it. Hopefully it will become a strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the work with Pillay has also meant a new approach to a general process.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually what ends up happening is we have our programs, and they\u2019re just packed full of everything, and we always get comments like, \u2018It just looks like you\u2019re rushing through everything, it\u2019s too busy,\u2019\u201d Orford said. \u201c[This year] we\u2019re focusing really on allowing ourselves the time\u2014not choreographing too much, because that\u2019s what we usually end up doing. It\u2019s almost like we\u2019re choreographing less and then if we have to add more later, we can, but it\u2019ll give us time to breathe and time to hold extensions, hold edges…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHold lines,\u201d Williams continued. \u201cAll the details, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Posing its own sort of challenge is the Paso Doble short dance. Based in a dance genre deeply rooted in musical convention, a fresh take can be difficult. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love the Paso and I think it’s fun,\u201d Williams said. \u201cBut as far as trying to find music, to find something that doesn\u2019t sound just the same as the typical, traditional Paso music…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be Spanish-y and Paso-y,\u201d Orford continued. \u201cWe were looking on a bunch of ballroom websites, and Michael Jackson\u2019s \u2018Thriller\u2019 is a Paso. Justin Timberlake\u2019s \u2018SexyBack\u2019 is a Paso. But if we went out there and did a Paso to that, it just doesn\u2019t seem like a Paso. So it\u2019s been hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

But training the dance has also, Orford said, led to a surprising find.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found it very interesting and fun that when we first started practicing the paso for this season, we were going so fast, and then we put the music on and we were like, \u2018Oh my gosh, we\u2019re so ahead of the music,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s from the last two years, having to go so fast in the Finnstep and so fast in the polka. Now, though it\u2019s a fast dance, it feels slow.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its own way, a more relaxed pace is also what the team anticipates after a 2013-14 season Orford describes as \u201cmentally, physically, emotionally draining.\u201d That period began with summer boot issues for Williams, resulting in injury to both ankles. \u201cWhen we were on the ice, it was only for like 20 minutes at a time before we had to get off, and that was it,\u201d Orford said. \u201cThat was just as much as he could handle.\u201d<\/p>\n

This meant limited training time going into their first competition, July\u2019s Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships, as Williams noted. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe hadn\u2019t done a lot of run-throughs and I was skating in my old boots at Lake Placid. I had my old boots with my new blades on them, so they were kind of duct-taped around them, just to give myself enough support to compete in the competition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But from a slow start, the team built toward some positives, including bronze at September\u2019s U.S. International Skating Classic and fifth-place finishes at both a competitive Canadian Championships and in their second appearance at the Four Continents Championships. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really happy with how we performed, especially towards the end at Nationals and Four Continents. We felt like we skated some of our strongest skates of the year,\u201d Orford said. \u201cWe were a little bit disappointed with our marks, because we felt like we made a lot of improvements, and our scores didn\u2019t reflect that the way we hoped they would. But we\u2019re really happy with how we skated.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a later start to choreography, Orford says that the team may for the first time bypass both Lake Placid and Minto Summer Skate, beginning their year instead at the home-based BC SummerSkate in mid-August. They would also love to compete at Skate Canada International in Kelowna, British Columbia, though they will have to wait to see where they are assigned on the Grand Prix circuit. <\/p>\n

\"14CdnNat-SrSD-3341-OW-MH\u201cIt\u2019s a four-hour drive from here, so my family could come watch, which would be really nice,\u201d Orford said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about a seven- or eight-hour drive from Calgary, which is where I\u2019m from, so I have a lot of friends who would also make the drive,\u201d Williams added. \u201cWe\u2019d have a lot of supporters among friends and family that would be there. And we\u2019ve never done Skate Canada before.\u201d <\/p>\n

Though the team has yet to compete a home Grand Prix, their first two full seasons on the senior circuit have meant the chance to cross paths with role models Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir and Meryl Davis & Charlie White\u2014and sometimes make an even closer encounter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know I really looked up to them, and it was surreal, almost, getting to compete against them at Grand Prix [events],\u201d Williams said. \u201cAnd the fact that we stood on the podium at Nationals with Tessa and Scott last year, and on the podium with Meryl and Charlie at Salt Lake this year, this past season, was kind of like a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it happened,\u201d Orford said, \u201cI knew that one day I would get here, standing on this podium, but I never thought it would be during Tessa and Scott and Meryl and Charlie\u2019s days. I never, ever thought I would be standing on a podium next to either of those two teams. So that was pretty exciting for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside the thrills made possible by competition, the two also continue their individual pursuits away from the competitive arena. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight now I\u2019m just taking one summer course,\u201d Orford said. She is a health sciences major in her third year at Simon Fraser University. \u201cEver since I graduated high school, I have been going to university\u2014I\u2019m just going really slow. All my friends that I graduated high school with, they\u2019re all graduating university now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orford also does some coaching, while her partner is even more involved on the other side of the boards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pay for all my own training,\u201d Williams said, \u201cso I work as a coach and dance partner around the lower mainland here. Sometimes I get called up north to partner on test days. I also own my own mobile auto detailing company, so on weekends, and sometimes during the week in summer, I go to people\u2019s homes or their work, and I clean their cars for them.” <\/p>\n

But with days at the rink typically stretching from 6 AM to early afternoon, the team’s concentration remains on the competitive effort. <\/p>\n

As for past programs, Williams is partial to their Gone With the Wind free dance of the 2011-12 season, and Orford notes a special affection for the senior-level rhumba version of that same season’s short dance: \u201cWe only got to do it for five weeks, but that one was my favorite,\u201d she said, and added that she also loved their country-western Yankee Polka from 2012-13.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s thoughts on future programs reflect a surer sense that their palette is expanding further.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve never done a tango yet, so I would like to do that,\u201d Orford said, her partner noting that the rhythm could arise in a future short dance, if not a free. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like even though we’ve been skating together for four years, when we first started, it was so rushed to get started that we were kind of limited in what we could do, just because we didn’t have a chance to develop as a team,\u201d Orford said. \u201cNow, I feel like the options that would suit us are maybe a little wider.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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