Monday, September 13, 2010

Fantasy on Ice from Fukui, Japan

The figure skating show Fantasy On Ice took place September 11th and September 12th in Fukui, Japan.  An earlier edition of the show took place in July in Niigata, Japan.  The skaters involved in the September show included Evgeni Plushenko, Stephane Lambiel, Johnny Weir, Tomas Verner, Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat, Surya Bonaly, Viktor Petrenko, Shizuka Arakawa, Miki Ando, Akiko Suzuki, Fumie Suguri, Haruka Imai,
Tatsuki Machida, and others.

With the large cast that included a number of Olympic and World medalists of all colors, many figure skating fans outside of Japan were hoping they would see a lot of video and photographs of the show(s).  Unfortunately there has been very little to come out of Japan in relation to these shows.  With so much coming out of China from the Artistry On Ice show, many fans were hoping for the same from Fantasy On Ice in Japan.  However, very little has shown up from this show; much to the surprise of those of us who are used to the generous Japanese fans providing us with both pictures and video.  A Japanese fan informed Johnny Weir's FaceBook fan group there was a complete ban on cameras and video cameras at the show, and it was strictly enforced.  Despite the fact this explains the lack of video and photographs from Fantasy On Ice, we are still hoping that some fans somewhere were able to take pictures and will at some point pass them on.

In the meantime, if you follow the link to the Fantasy On Ice website, you will see four small buttons on the right side below the five star figure skaters' pictures labeled ver.1, ver.2, ver.3 and ver.4.  Clicking on each of these buttons will cause a small window to pop up and you will see a very short video with information on the show and (very) brief videos picturing several of the skaters involved in the show.

The only other videos I have come across so far from this show are this brief news report with footage of several of the skaters courtesy of rororoom:
   
and this twelve second video of Johnny Weir courtesy of JEKitten1:


This photograph of rehearsals for the show came from the  Fukuishimbun.co.jp website:
The following backstage photographs are courtesy of Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat:

The following photos are all courtesy of JWArtProject:

Johnny Weir and his special guests Vogue Nippon team:
Flowers, Flowers 1, and Flowers 2 of the flowers generously given to Johnny by the Japanese Johnnys Angels:
In addition, Itoi Shigesato visited Johnny backstage at the show and also attended the show as a V.I.P.:


From 1101.com:

One of the programs skated by Johnny Weir in this show was a new number skated to 'Safety' by Dima Bilan.  The following photograph of Dima Bilan and Johnny Weir is also courtesy of JW Art Project:
The following photographs are from Johnny's new 'Safety' program.




3 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for the informative posting.
You can see Johnny spinning to Dima's Number 1 Fan in Fukui,Japan. Not rehearsal, it's show.
His spinning scene is brief but stunning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLzaVBQGDJQ

WheresMyKoppy said...

Thank you SO much for the comment and for the link to the performance! I had searched YouTube but hadn't found this! Thanks again!

Unknown said...

Oh! You can find the site on the recent Yana Rudkovskaya(Johnny's peer,Plushenko's wife)'s twitter. Johnny,Plush,Lambiel and Russian music...collaboration gave me new excitement.
I hope you can find it and also enjoy the show's atmosphere.