“Moseyeva and Minenkov’s dance to the music of West Side Story is definitely not a reaction to watching a movie or a ballet” – Tarasova

Honored Coach of the USSR Tatiana Tarasova said “”, when staging a program for Irina Moiseeva and Andrei Minenkov, she wanted to move away from the traditional form of free dancing.

Moiseeva and Minenkova, training with Tarasova, twice became world and European champions, as well as Olympic silver medalists. In 1978 in Strasbourg, they become the best in Europe with a free program, for the first time in figure skating staged with a single story on the music of a piece of music (the musical “West Side Story”) . In 1979, Moiseeva and Minenkov changed coaches.

– I read that the free program West Side Story by Irina Moiseeva and Andrei Minenkov is the first in figure skating to be set to music from a single piece, with a single script. How did the idea for this solution come about?

– I always wanted to do something unified and move away from the traditional three or four part free dance form, where contrasting music was combined – sometimes even from different genres. I am happy that the world of figure skating has positively accepted the departure from the traditional form towards the idea of ​​story dance, and now it is also a tradition.

It is impossible to explain how an idea comes. One fine day, he appears and you begin to realize it. If the idea is bad, deadlock quickly ensues, and if it’s good, everything gets done. But sitting around and waiting for an idea to come is wrong. This, it seems to me, is the result of a long reflection on a given subject. As far as I remember, the idea of ​​a free dance to the music of West Side Story is definitely not a reaction to watching a movie or a ballet, Tarasova told .

Watch the live broadcast of the festival “In Love with Figure Skating” on the channel on February 14 from 6:30 p.m. (Moscow time).