Our new programs!
While everyone else is relaxing by the pool enjoying the hot Florida sun… so are we! In between working on choreography and running to costume fittings, of course (but don’t worry, we won’t lose our signature ice skater paleness! No matter how hard we try, we still reflect the ice like ghosts and Tarah still has to buy the lightest shade of foundation).
After just finding out about our invitations to represent Team USA at this year’s Cup of China in Shanghai and Rostelecom Cup in Moscow at our first ever Grand Prix events, we are so excited for a two week excursion abroad where we will compete both competitions back to back! Which means we will probably be bringing an extra suitcase full of food (i.e., a lot of peanut butter and granola bars to curb those late night protein cravings where foreign foods are just a bit too foreign). We are both excited to explore new places, and Tarah is still holding on to that glimmer of hope that someone will trade pins with her (no one ever will).
Speaking of competitions, we are getting ready to debut our new programs, and we hope you will love them as much as we do. Our short program is set to “Your Song” sung by Ewan McGregor from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. If you are familiar with the film, the program is truly inspired by “truth, beauty, freedom and love” and is the theme of the piece and the inspiration of the movement. Our long program, on the other hand, is filled with passion and tragedy; however, again we play a couple in love who are destined to be pulled apart: music from the ballet Spartacus!
Thanks for reading,
Tarah & Danny
In Between the Seasons
New seasons are usually characterized by change: Saying goodbye to snow flurries in exchange for summer sunshine and exchanging sweaters for tee shirts. But for us, a new season means new programs and a (begrudging) change of rules… and perhaps the best thing of all, the idea of new costumes dancing like sugarplums in Tarah’s head.
As we kiss the men that brought us through the 2014 season (Don Quixote and James Bond) goodbye, we are ushering in new music, new choreography and everything exciting that comes along with being a competitive ice skater in a new season. As of right now, every day is a new learning experience at the rink and we are focusing intently on becoming the characters we will transform in to at the end of the season. Mostly that includes immersing ourselves in the stories of our new programs so we not only understand what is going on, but feel it as well.
Since the end of the 2014 season, we both have celebrated birthdays, turning 23 (Danny) and 21 (Tarah), respectively. For Tarah’s birthday, she celebrated by taking a trip to Disney World and going to dinner with Danny; for Danny’s, Tarah got him the biggest cookie cake she could find. During our little bit of down time between training, school classes and work, we have both been spending time with friends and catching up on some of our favorite TV (Game of Thrones for Tarah, House of Cards for Danny) and of course, adding in some extra dance classes.
Thank you so much for keeping up with us during the off season… Although there never really is an ‘off’ season for a skater, we are hard at work behind the scenes!
-Tarah & Danny
2014 Nationals & Four Continents
How can we possibly wrap up the excitement of the past few weeks in to one simple blog post? We thought our season had ended with a fizzle after our Nationals freeskate – with a 6th place finish. Although it may not have been all we had hoped for, for the culmination of our hard work, we had still laid out two seasons best scores and a clean short program a feat we were proud of. Little known fact: Tarah actually knocked one of Danny’s contacts out of his eye at the beginning of the long program. (Danny can skate his long program with one eye closed. Can you?)
But our season wasn’t over yet! We were shocked and excited to find out that we had been named to the 2014 US Four Continents championships team! This meant that we had 4 days to train once we got home to Florida from Boston before we boarded our next plane to Taipei City, Taiwan! There truly is no rest for the wicked.
There was, of course, the question of who would travel with us to Taipei as our coach- seeing as our coaches Jim Peterson and Lyndon Johnston would be staying home with our training mates who are training for THE OLYMPIC GAMES (How lucky are we to be surrounded by excellence?!). Lucky for us with our team coaching environment, we had our coach and Olympian Amanda Evora to travel with us. She was even able to show us around the rink and area because she had previously skated in the same event herself.
Equipped with travel guide, we conquered the Taipei Nightmarkets, shopping malls, famous sights like Taipei101 and… oh yeah, we even conquered the podium (or the silver medal anyways). After an OMG freak fall early in the long program, we really came back fighting and pulled up from 3rd place in the short to capture the silver. We were both thrilled with our performances and the entire experience. Being our first time in Asia, we were amazed at how kind the volunteers and fans were to the skaters! We also enjoyed meeting the fellow skaters from other countries and the closing banquet where there was an acrobatic performance. Just a 30 hour travel day including a 9 hour layover and 2 redeyes later and we are home safe and sound and have already begun discussing our plans for next season’s programs…and guess what? We even have our own Wikipedia pages now!
We would like to thank everyone who has followed and supported us during the 2013-14 skating season and can’t wait to perform for you all again.
We would also like to wish all of team USA and our team Florida training mates Felicia Zhang and Nate Bartholomay, Paige Lawrence and Rudi Sweigers (Team Canada) and Stacey Kemp and David King (Team Great Britain) a successful 2014 Olympic Games!
