05/08/2023

For my first blog post, I had the honour of interviewing legendary choreographer and 90s icon, Sandra Bezic. Having worked with several Olympic and World champions such as Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi in addition to Stars on Ice and multiple television specials, there is no one better to ask about the ins and outs of figure skating during the golden age!

We discussed Sandra’s early career, what drew her to choreography, the popularity of figure skating in the 1990s, and why this popularity has decreased in recent years.

Sinisa Jolic

So, there’s so much that we can talk about. I thought we could maybe start at the end of your amateur career. You were so young when you competed at the Olympics in ’72, then an injury kept you from competing in ’76; how did you know that it was time to move on from the competitive scene? 

Well, it’s complicated. It’s complicated in that I think in many respects I was very typical of a young teenager growing up with that pressure, and of being somewhat in the limelight, and life being constantly on the go, go, go, go, go. But you know, I don’t want to complain, my brother, Val, and I had a great competitive career filled with so many wonderful and gratifying experiences, but I do think it also stunted my development in a lot of ways. When you’re a teenager and you’re going through all the changes that you go through, especially as a young girl, I think I just reached a burnout. Once I got injured, it all hit me in the face, because when you’re really busy all the time, you just stay on the treadmill and go through the motions without thought. When I got injured, I think everything kind of collapsed around me. At the time there wasn’t the support system that there is now, and I don’t even think there is such a great support system now. 

You can probably see yourself in what’s happening today with so many young skaters.

Completely, but back then it was old school. I had a disciplinarian as a coach. There was no support system when things went wrong, you were just a failure. Or at least, that’s how I looked at it. I think I took that with me, and it certainly informed how I teach and how I work with the skaters. 

And some places are still like that.

Absolutely, abusive situations must be exposed now. I think that really should be a priority in our sport: supporting everybody, all athletes. 

It’s interesting that from so many years ago, it doesn’t really seem like all that much has changed.

Well, no, and I think where my concern is, is the age of athletes. When you’re a young athlete you’re taught to be coached and to, in a way, please people, so it’s in your DNA. In figure skating, you’re judged, and so you’re constantly judging yourself before anybody else can judge you. So, to me, the issue is in the age, because when you’re so young you don’t have a voice yet, and you can either have good influences or bad influences around you. There are some wonderful coaches who really care, but then there are the few who are riding on those athletes’ coattails one way or another, whether it’s parents or coaches. The support system often isn’t really a support system, it’s parasitic, and to me that’s what’s so scary. So, I love when skaters have an opportunity to grow and mature, and to make their own choices and don’t really come of age as performers and athletes until their late teens, early 20s and beyond. 

I think that’s what’s so attractive about 80s and 90s skating as opposed to what’s going on now. You could see someone compete for 2 or 3 Olympic cycles and really watch their growth, as opposed to these athletes who are just one and done. 

Yes, broken and discarded. It’s sad, but I think there’s so much more to that. The world was smaller, it was less complicated. Or rather, judging was not as complicated. There are so many layers and so many elements that are responsible.

So how did you initially make the transition from professional skater, as you were at this point, to choreographer? Did you always see yourself staying in the sport for as long as you have?

No, I was lost, and I kind of ran away from the sport for three years and didn’t turn on the TV. I didn’t watch the sport, and slowly crawled my way back. But when I made a conscious decision to become involved, I think this was also instinctive. I thought about what I could offer that was unique to my abilities, or what my unique experience would be able to offer up. I decided and made a conscious decision to become a choreographer because I felt that my skill set, and my training were really directed towards that. There were very few choreographers who came from skating, usually they were from the dance world, and I just felt that because I was a skater and a high-level competitor, that I had something to offer. I knew what it felt like and what it needed to feel like in order to compete. I also gravitated towards choreography because from the time I was a little girl, I danced to music. That’s what I did. It didn’t really matter whether it was on the ice or on the floor or wherever it was, my motivation to skate was to express music. 

So it was always somewhere within you?

It was always within me, so then I made it something conscious. But I was still just a young woman stumbling along.  Then Louis Stong called me to co-coach and choreograph Barbara [Underhill] and Paul [Martini].  I had only been choreographing for a year.  Louis and his wife, Marijane, took me under their wing. I was so fortunate to be guided by wonderful mentors. I was safe there; I was safe to learn. They were so generous with their knowledge and support, and so it couldn’t have happened the same way without them. I was really lucky. 

Do you think that the skaters you worked with responded to you differently than to other choreographers because you had that different background?  

Well, there were almost no choreographers then. There was no pre-set response or format because very few competitive skaters had a choreographer. Coaches did the choreography – and coaches should be able to choreograph. I kind of disagree with the idea that a coach just sort of plops their skater on a choreographer and says “Okay, go do them.” I really think the coach should be involved. They should know how to choreograph and be involved with the music choices, the evolution of the program, and with the final product. Even if they’re not that way inclined. The coach should be the coach, of course and oversee it all, but the product is always better when they also participate in the process. When a coach collaborates, they can reinforce and develop the concept as the season unfolds.  

One of your first big success stories was your work with Brian Boitano in 1988. How do you feel that victory and your involvement with it changed the trajectory of your career?

Oh, it most certainly changed the trajectory. It was because it happened so quickly, I mean, it was a perfect storm. It was quick, it was within less than a year. Linda Leaver had asked me to work with Brian at the ‘87 World Championships. It was for Calgary ’88, which was live television and high drama.  It was a Canadian versus an American. I was working with the American, and the Canadian had an American choreographer.  The world seemed to be focused on the Olympics, which were really starting to become huge media events. It was just another perfect storm. I mean, talk about lucky – to be working with Linda Leaver, who is a genius of a coach, and Brian, who is so talented, passionate and disciplined. My trajectory was also because the popularity of skating was really exploding at that time.  After ‘88 we had all these TV specials.  Although I knew Katarina [Witt] from competitive events, I first worked with her on Brian’s ABC Special, Canvas of Ice. We went to her in East Germany, and we bonded. We had a wonderful time creating together, which led to Katarina’s Carmen On Ice, and then Brian and Katarina had their three North American tours, which I directed and choreographed. It was just like boom, boom, boom. Everything happened so quickly. It wasn’t a plan.

During this time in the 80s, we really started to see stars transcend the sport, such as Brian, Katarina, and Torvill and Dean. What do you think it was about these skaters that captured the attention of a wider audience, who may not have been hugely interested in the sport before?

Well, I think it goes back to the world and the television world being a smaller place, so all eyes were on the Olympics. There weren’t other distractions or as many opportunities for different sources of entertainment. First of all, these are all extraordinary people, but there are also extraordinary people now who aren’t necessarily getting the international attention they deserve. There are megastars in Asia, which is wonderful, but it’s a harder world now to find an audience and keep their attention. I also think there’s simplicity in a 6.0 system. Figure skating threw that away when we changed the rules. When Torvill and Dean got the series of 6.0s, the average viewer who would never normally watch skating, knew they were watching greatness at that moment, because those judges said it was perfect. It was like, “holy moly, we just watched perfection.” It was one of those events where you knew where you were when you witnessed it, and that was the same with Calgary ’88. You knew where you were when Katarina was competing with Liz Manley and Debi Thomas. You knew where you were for the Battle of the Brians, and so, that started happening less and less, and then with the judging scandal in 2002, everything changed. 

The projects Canvas of Ice and Carmen on Ice, how did they come about and how different was it for you creating skating content for television rather than a live audience in an arena?

Oh, I learned a massive amount. When I started working for television, my first special as a choreographer was Dorothy Hamill’s Romeo and Juliet on Ice. I learned a massive amount, which really informed my choreography in ’88 for Brian, because I did a lot of his choreography for the camera, actually. I was very aware of the greater audience beyond the judges and live audience, and it was something I was very interested in exploring. Canvas of Ice was Brian’s dream, and he went to the people at ABC, and they made it happen for him.  There were only a handful of us creating it and we kind of made it as we went along, and learned as we went along. It was on a shoestring budget, but we figured it out. It was all generated by Brian, and then again, Carmen was Katarina’s dream. Her producer was quite a character from Germany, and you know, you had to be a character with access to a lot of money to believe such an ambitious project was even possible. We had a primarily North American cast except for Katarina, and a few skaters from Germany and the extras were locals from Spain, where we filmed on location. We rehearsed in Toronto and East Berlin, and we filmed on location in Spain, and then returned to Berlin to finish filming.  The Berlin Wall had come down while we were in Spain, which was such a powerful and emotional event for Katarina.  It was an extraordinary history lesson in the midst of all this for all of us.  With Carmen, we had choreographed only about 10 to 12 minutes in advance of filming, then for the rest of the content we choreographed a minute, then shot the minute, over and over, all through the night, every night, on the go. So that’s where I learned to choreograph on command with a crew of several hundred people standing there, waiting for us to get the next minute done, so they could film it. It was tough, and it was stressful. I had to keep the storyline in mind because we were shooting out of order, and the progression of choreography expressing the story had to make sense. Neither Katarina nor Brian had ever skated with a partner. I had asked Michael Seibert to assist so he and I as a pair could create with them as quickly as possible. It’s astonishing how much new information Kat and Brian were able to handle, then perform it immediately with such excellence. I learned so much with that experience. I mean, it was really tough, but it was also really fun and exciting. It was magical. Again, we were just so lucky for all these strange pieces to fall together. 

Carmen on Ice Rehearsals – Dino Ricci

Wasn’t there a rainstorm as well?

Oh, the rain! Oh my goodness, the rain in Spain. It started raining and it just didn’t stop for weeks. We had to go to the set every day for the shoot to be officially called off in order for the producer to collect his insurance. So, every day several hundred of us would go to the set and stand in the rain, and every day it would be cancelled, then finally after weeks of non-stop rain with no end in sight, the production in Spain got completely cancelled. Then about a month later we regrouped in Berlin. We then had sets built in an arena that perfectly duplicated the Spanish sets, which had been authentic location sites.  We found ourselves back in Berlin, in what had been East Berlin only a few months early, because the wall had come down in between. The energy of the city was now completely different. Katarina was juggling a huge responsibility and workload as the star, with the overwhelming political changes to her entire life and home. 

You couldn’t write that. I mean, that’s just crazy, everything that happened.

No, you couldn’t. You couldn’t write that.

I’m sure it was worth it in the end, though.

We’re still very proud of it, and I feel like it still has merit. You know, it’s such a beautiful production. The sets and cinematography. And everyone was learning as we went along. The German crew had never worked with ice before, and so we were teaching them about the ice in general, and we ourselves were also learning about tank ice in outdoor environments at the mercy of weather. We worked painstakingly shot to shot with one or two cameras because it was on film. Each focus point had to be measured out and the skaters had to hit their marks. I mean, it was crazy to think we could pull it off, but it was so exciting. We knew that it was something that was going to last forever, so we told ourselves it had to be good.  

I think it’s really one of the quintessential pieces of that time that everyone should watch. It sums it all up perfectly.

Yeah, and I think with the cast being the two Brians and Katarina, and with everyone looking gorgeous and fabulous, the three of them were truly magnificent, yes, I’m very proud of it. I think we all are. 

So, we’re in the 90s now, and the sport is growing massively in popularity. You went from the Boitano/Witt tour to Stars on Ice, whilst also choreographing for Olympians such as Kurt Browning and Kristi Yamaguchi. Was there one standout moment that really made you think “wow, this is a huge thing now,” or was it a combination of everything that was going on? 

I think it was a combination of everything and kind of not coming up for air. It was one project after the other because there were so many TV specials – Kurt’s specials, Tall In the Saddle and You Must Remember This, which had the Singin’ in the Rain number. Brian Orser had several, as did Liz Manley, Barb and Paul, and then there were many Disney specials. There were also several Symphony tours and many one-off live shows. It was a very, very busy time, but I think I was smart enough to know how lucky I was. I was afraid to say no to anything because you’re sort of afraid that it’s all going to go away. It felt a lot of responsibility too. Boitano/Witt into Stars on Ice, I mean, that was a responsibility. We learned along the way, the whole team of us: lighting designers, costume designers, music producers, it was just everybody experimenting and creating together and learning how to stage, light and shoot skating in new ways.  Not to say that it hadn’t been done before, necessarily, but we started out as a mostly inexperienced team with the goal to reinvent. 

Dino Ricci

But the scale of everything seems overwhelming compared to previous years.

Yes, it was, but you just run with it and learn from it. You try to do your best every time. Some make it, some don’t. I’m just very grateful for all those opportunities. It makes me sad now that there aren’t as many opportunities, certainly in North America and Europe, there are fewer. There are very few television and screen projects, and I feel sad for the current crop of choreographers who just don’t have the same opportunities that I did. They’re brilliant, and they should have the opportunities to make their own stamp.

It’s almost as if they get to showcase themselves once every four years when people become interested again during the Olympics.

Yeah, kind of. Superfans make the effort to stay informed, but otherwise skating is niche except for the Olympics and very few breakout skaters and moments. 

In 1994, a lot of professional skaters were allowed to return to amateur competition and compete in the Lillehammer Olympics. How did that feel for you as a choreographer, but also as a friend to many of them, to get to watch them compete again?

It was a different experience with both Brian and Katarina. Katarina had no competitive expectations. She wanted to make a political statement, and I was thrilled and honoured to work with her on that. For Brian, it all got clouded because he was injured, and he had a tough season. Then in the meantime, I was pregnant, so I didn’t even go to Lillehammer. It was the one Olympics I missed because I couldn’t travel. I sat at home with my feet up watching it, so it was kind of surreal for me to have that distance. And then for the whole, horrible whack on the knee, I was a viewer like the rest of the world on that one, thinking, “holy moly, what just happened?”

I suppose that kind of clouded the experience for everyone who was competing as well. 

Yes it did, but it also brought attention to the sport. I think what it did do was bring in more people who weren’t necessarily interested in the sport but started watching because of Nancy and Tonya, and then fell in love with it. They realised, “oh, these skaters are really interesting, and this is really beautiful.” So, I think some good came of it, but then the notoriety and the circus side of it, burnt itself out as well.

I mean, obviously it was horrendous, but I don’t think you can deny the audience that it brought in.

Correct.

That sort of leads into my next question. Using Stars on Ice as an example, the show toured for months and months around 60 cities every year, that’s no mean feat. 

And they were sell-outs, to the rafters.

People say that audiences were only interested in the sport because of the scandal, but these audience numbers show that you really brought these people in and managed to retain them. What do you think it was about skating in the 90s that managed to keep people interested for so many years?

Interest in skating in North America started long before the ’94 scandal. Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Toller Cranston, John Curry, Torvill and Dean, all had multiple prime-time network specials, each ground-breaking in their own way. I think figure skating can be so many different things, and I think audiences somehow find themselves and their connection within it one way or another, whether it’s athletically, or artistically, creatively, or because of the sensuality of it. Skating has so many facets, and it’s vulnerable. The skater is alone out there, or alone with a partner, and it’s high risk. It’s all those things. 

There really is something for everyone, especially during this time period.

An audience can find themselves in it if they look, and when they look, they often become hooked. It just has that way of captivating people because it’s about personalities. It’s about stars, it’s about movement and the sense of flight and freedom. It can be everything. Boitano/Witt sold out, then Stars On Ice sold out, then Tonya and Nancy happened and we kind of rode that wave and continued to do so until Salt Lake, then things started falling apart after that. The television market was so saturated as well, it was like we killed the golden goose in a bunch of different ways. 

During this time in the mid to late 90s, did you get a sense that there was perhaps too much going on and the audience was becoming slightly disillusioned by this point?

Yes, because everything started looking the same. There were so many shows on TV every week that were being produced so quickly with the same skaters. I mean, you can’t knock anybody for doing it. The skaters obviously should be taking advantage of making a living, but all of it saturated the market, so that was one element that hurt the sport. Then of course the 2002 judging scandal happening live for all the world to see our underbelly, which had always existed but was just so exposed in that moment. Unfortunately, the corruption wasn’t necessarily addressed or fixed in a way that it needed to be. Nobody to this day can understand why the people who deliberately cheated in Salt Lake, and in previous competitions, were allowed to come back after three years.

So you weren’t satisfied with the outcome of the Salt Lake scandal with the changes to the judging system?

No, of course not. Why was Didier [Gailhaguet] still walking around competitions? Had the Nagano dance event scandal been properly addressed, Salt Lake wouldn’t have happened.  Why wasn’t there zero tolerance? All this effort was made to change the judging system. Yes, the judging system needed to be developed with the times, but the judges who tried to blow the whistle were the ones who were thrown out, not the judges who actually cheated. I mean, we’re a judged sport where things are subjective, and people will cheat. So, as a community we should be doing our best to try and minimise that, and punish those who do cheat with zero tolerance, so the athletes are protected as much as possible. 

Do you think, then, that was the final nail in the coffin for the sport that was already waning in popularity?

For that time, yes, but then you also have to ask the question why is it doing so well in Asia now? With Yuna Kim and the Japanese stars and Chinese stars, they grew up with this system. Certainly, Japan has always been involved with different stars over the years, but it’s massive right now, and this era has grown up in this system. Somehow it works and their audiences understand it. It works for them. There is a level of integrity to their skating and their performance. They just come with such integrity, so maybe that’s why it’s flourishing with mega-stars, who have found an audience. 

So do you think that the struggle for popularity today in the former big markets of North America and Europe is less about the fact that there aren’t as many big stars as there used to be, and more about there being less opportunities for skaters? 

Yes. I think it’s because the viewing numbers on television dictate a lot. As viewership drops, there are less opportunities because sponsors, producers, and networks become less interested. The audience isn’t given a chance to fall in love with pretty fabulous skaters who come and go, and we didn’t get a chance to know them. It can’t just be every four years now. We need the public interested in World Championships every year, and then have opportunity to go to see live performances, and of course watch innovative TV specials, and pro competitions. We haven’t given them that opportunity. It’s a chicken and egg thing, right? The numbers continue to drop, and so really fabulous skaters aren’t known. I think the world should know about Nathan Chen and Jason [Brown], for example, beyond the skating market. They are known to a degree, but not like back then when the top skaters were household names – and still are to this day. But again, everything was much smaller and more streamlined back then. There were less sources of entertainment to compete with, so skaters could more easily connect with the public and then stay connected. Now, the Russian girls seem to come and go, but say for example, Gabi [Papadakis] and Guillaume [Cizeron], my god, they’re exquisite and gorgeous, and have longevity, and should be the Torvill and Dean of today. 

And Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, they have achieved a little bit more popularity thanks to going viral on TikTok, but to me they should be household names, not just in Canada.

Worldwide, certainly. They medalled in three Olympics with two of them gold medals. Obviously, the Olympics aren’t enough now, whereas they might have been back in ’88. I don’t know the answer to it. If I knew the answer, I’d be part of the solution.  

Dino Ricci

So, I thought we could end with some fun, quick fire questions. First of all, what’s the one piece of music that you never want to watch a competitive program to ever again? The music starts and you just go, “oh no, not this again.” 

Well, I’m going to surprise you. You probably think I’m going to say Carmen, however, hats off to anybody who wants to tackle that score. It’s such a fabulous piece of music, and anybody who wants to try it, go for it, because it’s a delicious piece of music. I think I would go more for Hallelujah or The Mission. However, I’m pretty idealistic in this regard, because I think if somebody has an idea and really wants to do it, then they should. 

Maybe that was a bit of a mean question! Sometimes I find myself rolling my eyes at the start of the season, but by the end of it I don’t want them to get rid of the program for next season.

I moan and groan like everybody else, but the truth is, it’s part of the appeal of skating. We all have an opinion and we love to share our opinions, debate them, and that is very much an appeal of our sport. 

Is there any skater, active or retired, that you have never worked with but would love to?  

I have actually never pined to work with anyone because I do believe choreographers and skaters find their matches. Can you imagine Sergei [Grinkov] and Katia [Gordeeva] without Marina [Zoueva]? It’s always inspiring to see another choreographer’s choices – a fabulous concept or piece of music, and then the movement, which perfectly showcases their skater. I’ve often been awestruck by Christopher Dean’s choreography, and Marina Zoueva. David Wilson, Lori Nichol, Marie-France Dubreuil, the list goes on. I appreciate how difficult it is to find those magical vehicles and it really is to be celebrated. When there are great pairings that last and grow together for years, such as Jason and Rohene or Yuna and David, it’s even more wonderful because it does take years for a choreographer to really understand and develop a skater’s range – and for the skater to respond. 

If you could only work with one skater for the rest of your life, who would it be? 

Oh no, I’m not going to answer that! I have too many babies, and I love them all equally.  

Finally, do you have a standout memory of touring with Stars on Ice for so many years? 

I always loved load-in, when the rig was going up, and when we were about to start lighting the show in Lake Placid.  When our lighting designer, Ken Billington, would arrive with his team, we all changed gears because we knew that the lighting was the final creative element to make magic.  I just loved the feeling of excitement, and pressure, that the show was coming quickly, and we were opening in 10 days, or two weeks, or whatever it was. I also loved our very first production meetings earlier in the summer where the creative team would gather together to develop concepts and create the show from a blank slate – the music, the costumes, the lights and the sets. It was the making of the shows that was exhilarating for me; working with the skaters, and the production team and then as a producer and director, creating an environment where everybody is able to produce their best work.  

You had so many strong skaters and teams, I suppose you had to find a way to make everyone shine and play to their individual strengths.  

That was actually something that Steven Cousins and I just talked about a couple of days ago, he said something really sweet. He said, “you directed us so that we all shine,” and that was the goal. Michael Siebert and I would sit down and say “okay, what’s next? What hasn’t Kristi done yet? What hasn’t Kurt done? What direction should we explore with them?” We did that for each cast member. Or, back with Boitano/Witt, Katarina and Brian generated many of the creative ideas as well. When skaters do that, it elevates everything. It’s the collaboration with skaters, the crew, the design team, it’s not just one person, it’s everybody working together for the common goal to create something magical, to move and entertain an audience, and that’s what I love most – the collaborative effort. Wading through ideas and solving problems and then finally, when opening night comes, nervously sitting back and getting to hear the audience laugh when you hoped they would laugh, or react in a way that you didn’t expect, but was still good. Sitting back and watching every element working together to showcase the skaters and their talents, That, to me, is exhilarating.