Shall We Dance? Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat's "Romeo and Juliet" by Sergei Prokofiev

At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano Japan, Marina and Gwendal Peizerat won a bronze medal skating to Prokofiev's powerful "Romeo and Juliet" score, setting themselves up for the next quadrennial among the best in the world. Marina and Gwendal finished second at the World Championships in Minneapolis following the Games, and again in a controversial finish at the following year's Worlds in Helsinki. They finally mined gold at the 200 Worlds in Nice, France. They had a bit of an off-year in 2001, struggling with the right program concept, but came back strong in 2002, winning the Olympic gold medal--the first time a French ice dancing team has won Olympic gold.

This "Romeo and Juliet" program is one of their signature pieces as it seamlessly combines the qualities they are best known for: drama, passion, and innovation (notably the reverse lifting they employ with Marina lifting Gwendal). As listing their superlatives, I believe I listed similar ones for Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, who I wrote about last week: http://susanfieldofgold.blogspot.com/2011/03/shall-we-dance-marina-klimova-and.html . Until now, I had never made a connection between the teams before, but come to think of it, there are a host of similarities, right down to the beautiful, long, flowing red hair of both Marinas. Both women are very dramatic and Russian, as Marina Anissina is originally from Moscow, the same hometown of Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko.

Marina Anissina skated for Russia with former partner Ilia Averbukh, winning 2 Junior World titles in the early 90s. When her partnership with Averbukh dissolved, after an intense letter-writing campaign to find a new partner, Marina was matched with Gwendal Peizerat of France. (For a more detailed account of this story, see my previous post on Marina and Gwendal: http://susanfieldofgold.blogspot.com/2010/10/marina-anissina-and-gwendal-peizerats.html . This link also includes an incredible performance to "Man in the Iron Mask" that earned them their second consecutive World silver medal in 1999).

Marina and Gwendal's "Romeo and Juliet" is dramatic ice dancing at its finest. As one You Tube viewer commented on this video post: "I miss this kind of ice dancing! Their dance wasn't just movement, it was poetry, emotion, tragedy."

Enjoy the program!!