Sunday Herald Sun, Australia
By CATHERINE LAMBERT
IT was a snap decision in childhood that turned Olga Sharutenko from pointe shoes to ice skates. Now she has come full circle, living in the worlds of ballet, theatre and sport as one of the leading members of the Imperial Ice Stars. Sharutenko, 28, plays the lead role of Odette in the company's new production of Swan lake on Ice, a role that incorporates her ballet beginnings with her 20 years as a top ice skater.
"I still love ballet, but my mother had been a figure skater, so that was really always going to be my destiny," Sharutenko said. "Ballet and dance is the basis for the sport of figure skating anyway." This beautiful production manages to sublimate the sport and emphasise the theatrical elements of story telling, visual effects and glorious costumes. Lighting and the romance of the ice suits Swan Lake more than other ballets and the lake scenes in particular are alluring.
The cast of 25 perform plenty of eye-catching tricks - many invented just for this show - but they are woven so carefully into the dance that they do not pull focus and artistic merit from the work. Performers often wear pointe shoes on the ice to emphasise the respect for this much-loved ballet and bring more artistry to the ice. Along with stunning, delicate and lavish costumes the show has an elegance not seen in previous ice theatre.
Sharutenko's decision to hang up her competitive skates was a difficult one and it took her about a year to accept she would never return to the sport."I missed the sport terribly at first because it had been my life since I was a child and it's a life that doesn't allow for anything else," she said. "All the time I had to be ready for competitions, so for the first year in ice dance theatre I kept up with the competition circuit ... I still thought I would go back, but something happened to change that, "I really hadn't expected to find performing so interesting. I fell in love with it because it's so artistic and allowed me to relax in many ways while exploring this artistic side. It's much closer to my soul and heart than just the sport."
It is also a much easier life in many ways. Since the age at eight, when Sharutenko decided to be a serious figure skater, she had been training four hours a day, six days a week. She still trains an hour a day in the theatre, performs eight shows a week and travels the world on tour. She can envisage at least seven more years on ice.
She may not be competing any more, but competition still thrives within the company as they all work to develop new tricks and moves. "Most of the people in company began in sport so we still have that sense of competition," she said. "If I see someone try a jump in a new way. I want to do the same. We are still just as dedicated and disciplined. but are performing for an audience of 1500 people rather than nine judges. "That is the most important thing to me - to get a reaction from the audience to your movements and how you tell the story."
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