Sunday Express
By Clare Heal
Not since Jayne Torvll and Christopher Dean's perfect score for artistic impression at the 1984 Winter Olympics has there been such a buzz about ice-skating.
We Britons adore ice, lusting after a climate that might permit endless days spent muffled up on a lake or a park pond engaged in figures-of-eight but, bar the two months of the year we get to enjoy festive outdoor rinks, our love affair with ice-skating is still very much an armchair hobby.
We can enjoy the TV coverage of the latest figure-skating competitions, and the lucrative Disney on Ice arena tours are a big hit with children. However, if watching a huge Buzz Lightyear executing toe loops is not your idea of fun, there is a new show coming to a theatre near you.
The Imperial Ice Stars' version of Sleeping Beauty on Ice is a totally different proposition. It's not ballet on ice, but just as dazzling.
All the stars have backgrounds in competitive skating, with many national, European and world champions among the cast.
Between them, they have an impressive 210 medals and have been choroegraphed by Tatiana Tarasova who has, in the past, choreographed and coached seven Olympic Gold medallists.
The company is based in Moscow and the dancers are largely Russian, but are joined for this production by German Mandy Woetzel, a 1998 bronze Olympic medal winner, in the role of Princess Aurora.
An Olympic ice rink is 60m (200ft) by 30m. Tne ice the company will be covering British stages with for Sleeping Beauty is 15m by 15m. It's a challenge for even the best to execute the dramatic leaps, turns and lifts expected of them in such a confined space.
So, is theatre considered a bit tame after the highs and lows of competition? When I catch up with Mandy Woetzel, she is discussing with Vadim Yarkov (who plays her Prince Desire) about whether or not a complicated lift sequence will work if she wears curly hair extensions to make her blonde bobbed hair more "princess-like".
She says: "At first, when I came to the company, it was difficult. I had to learn new things to be able to skate on stage. On a normal rink, you are skating round and people can see you frrom all angles. With this, you must always perform to the front."
The other challenge facing a competitive skater joining the Imperial Ice Stars is the acting. An occassional between-scene narration is provided by veteran actor Bill Kerr, but since the score is from Tchaikovsky's ballet and the Sleeping Beauty story is familiar one, the action is mostly left to speak for itself.
Vadim Yarkov brings a noble jauntiness to his Prince and takes this side of the job very seriously.
Born in Kazakhstan, he was a menmber of the USSR national team for four years in the Nineties, winning 16 gold, 20 silver and nine bronze medals. He has been with the company since 1997, always playing leading roles, and gives his character a lightness of touch that is utterly charming.
He says: "At first, I thought he was a classical prince but, after a while, I decided that was, perhaps, a little boring.
"I tried to find something extra in him,something that had maybe a little bit of Pirates in the Caribbean."
But perhaps the most extraordinary display is from 19-year-old Viktoria Kuzmenko as Carabosse, the wicked fairy. She is painfully shy, whispering just a few words to the translator in answer to my questions, but on stage, clad in black, she metamorphoses into the powerful and wicked Carabosse and couldn't look more evil if she tried.
Company director Tony Mercer told me he tweaked the plot to incorporate a bigger role for Carabosse.
He said: "Her theme appears in the score in bursts of a minute or so at a time, but I wanted to make her more menacing.
"Listening to other Tchaikovsky works, I found the same theme appears in Francesca da Rimini."
Although Tony can't skate, he says this helps him to think differently about the production.
For example, Sleeping Beauty contains a sequence with the good Lilac Fairy in ballet shoes rather than skates. Olga Sharoutenko, who plays the Lilac Fairy says of wearing pumps on ice: "It is not cold but it can be slippery."
Olga also prefers skating on stage to competitions. "I have grown here," she says. "I couldn't find myself in the competition but, here, I have learned so much."
As part of its nationwide tour, Sleeping Beauty will be the first ice show to come to legendary London dance venue Sadler's Wells.
The theatre's marketing director Kingsley Jayaskera says: "It's a new departure for us, but it fits in with what we do. We're hoping a ballet audience will want to give this a chance and that a new audience might come to experiment with a classical ballet."
It's one the whole family will enjoy, but you won't need children in tow to justify buying tickets.
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