fivetimechamp: by me (dalla speranza nascerà l’eternità)
Виктор Никифоров ([personal profile] fivetimechamp) wrote2037-03-31 05:17 pm

Stammi Vicino: Choreography and Commentary

All commentary thanks to the outstanding Toraonice:


Miyamoto: Hello, I’m the choreographer Kenji Miyamoto.
Kubo: Hello, I’m the original planner Mitsurou Kubo. Thank you for today.
M: Thank you~.
K: Thank you for coming. Well then, this is Victor Nikiforov’s free skating, “Aria (Hanarezu ni Soba ni Ite)”. So, regarding the choreography, what did you pay attention to when you created it, Kenji-sensei?
M: Yes. Regarding Victor, I created the choreography trying to make his throat and chin look beautiful, like in the stone statues you see in museums.
K: So basically, it’s important to have a clear image when you create a choreography, isn’t it?
M: Yes. When you want to show something, you have to make it so that it comes forward.
K: So that it comes forward.
M: Yes. If you try to express too many things it will just get confusing, so I always try to show the points I want to convey as much as possible.
K: Ok. Regarding this choreography, well, it’s not really the choreography itself, but I would like to explain the reason Kenji-sensei’s clothing style is a bit unfashionable. If the right & left arms and legs don’t look different in some way there is a high chance that they’ll get mixed up when creating the animations, so we asked him to make them look somewhat different, and that’s why he’s like, showing only one sock, using different gloves, and so on.
M: Exactly. And it just happens that I was wearing striped socks that day (LOL). If I think about it now it’s quite embarrassing (LOL).
K: He’s also changing outfits a few times, and this is because from time to time we would like, retake the sequence, or ask him to skate again a part we didn’t have enough material for, and such.
M: This outfit [tn: the white shirt] was used to check how to depict the fabric fluttering because of the wind.
K: Though it was just in the beginning, right? (LOL.) But yeah, Victor’s skating in episode 1 is really, you know, the animated scene was really amazing, but actually “Hanarezu ni Soba ni Ite” is also the first program that was choreographed.
M: Yes. At the time there wasn’t a clear image for it, but I received lots of input from sensei, so…
K: Yeah, we requested the choreography when the story wasn’t completely decided yet, and I was kind of worried that we had made Kenji-sensei uneasy, but he came up with such nice steps.
M: Well, indeed, I did make it so that you could get level 4. In the program I used deep edges, choctaw, bracket, rocker, counter and all kinds of steps, so if you use it in a tournament you might actually get a good score. I mean, you will get a good score.
K: You do?
M: Yes.
K: See, we can feel at ease because we know that Kenji-sensei will think about all these things too when he creates the choreographies… Ah, this is my camera (LOL). [tn: when Miyamoto looks like he’s skating toward the screen]
M: This is when Kubo-sensei asked me to bring out a man’s sex appeal…
K: Yes, that’s right… (LOL)
M: That was really embarrassing (LOL).
K: I was gripping the camera and going “haaaaah” inside (LOL).
M: I see (LOL).
K: But I think that anyone who watches the final footage that was created for the broadcast will understand right away that Victor is a great skater, I mean, we could get a convincing sequence that conveys that. Thank you very much, Kenji-sensei.
M: Well, I’m not Victor, so it was really hard to skate that (LOL).
K: (LOL). Ok, so this was Victor Nikiforov’s free skating, “Aria (Hanarezu ni Soba ni Ite)”.

(More from Kenji Miyamoto on choreographing "Yuri!!! on Ice")

Was there any music that you found especially memorable?

All of them took a lot of work, so I remember every single one. Victor’s “Aria ~Stammi Vicino, Non Te Ne Andare~” is a really beautiful song. And because I retired at the age of 27 to become a choreographer, like he did, when I thought about how Victor felt and his passion for skating, I found myself really empathising with him, in the sense of wanting to rejuvenate my own feelings again, and so I put a lot into his choreography.



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