Choreography

Music

Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin

Elements

Performances

Skate Canada 2nd
  November 6 - 90, 1997
Halifax/NS/CAN

  Evening with Champions
Nov, 1997
Harvard/MA/USA

NHK Trophy 1st
  November 27 - 30, 1997
Nagano/JPN  

Russian Nationals 1st
December 11-14, 1997
Moscow

Champions Series Final 1st
Dec. 19-21, 1997
 Munich/GER 

XVIII. Winter Olympic Games 1998  
 February 7 - 22, 1998
 Nagano/JPN
Rhapsody in Blue skated February 14, 1998 to win Gold Medal.

Golden Gala Exhibition
February   1998
 Tokyo/JPN

Champions on Ice Tour
April-July, 1998

Links

Photos Copyright  J. Barry Mittan

The young Russian boy discovers America and is dazzled by the delights of   New York City streets. It is said that the marvelous black and yellow costume might represent sunlight and shadows cast by tall buildings.   The effect of the two colors blurring together during this program's innumerable breath-taking jumps is stunning. The choreography sparkles; it evokes joy. The viewer tingles with the rapture in which the immigrant boy is glorying.  We witness, too, a tender pause in the non-stop whirl of fun when the boy first sights his true love and then it's back into the fray. Ilia calls George Gershwin his "lucky composer". It was with Gershwin that he won the Jr. Worlds and then the '95 European Championships and when he called on Gershwin again in 1998, he won gold with the most technically complex program in Olympic figure skating history.


(Miriam Ellis)