I drove to Hershey, PA to see Kurt Browning for one last time with Stars on Ice on June 4, 2023. I think I first saw him skate live almost 30 years ago. This man has won figure skating world championships both with and without figures. I just saw him land four double axels; for his last jump of the night and of his touring career, he launched into a triple toe loop. The man is 56 years old. You could almost see him growl with determination as he entered it. He is more than 20 years older than the next oldest castmate in this year’s troupe, I believe. His face has the beautiful weathering of a man in his 50s but his body looks as lithe and quick as ever, at home next to the teens like Isabeau Levito and Ilia Malinin. I cannot imagine how hard he has trained, how much pride he has mustered, to skate up to his own standards for his final touring season.
As a pro skater, I think there was almost nothing he couldn’t do. He was always on the music, looking natural in every style. Always springing up with innovations and spontaneous ideas, so quick in his turns that he almost looked still in his upper body.
He is, I believe, the greatest male skating performer of his era.
Hershey was the last stop of this year’s Canadian/U.S. SOI tour, and there were signs of fatigue. Isabeau Levito skated the first number and I wonder if she is injured. Even so, her glide on the ice had a birdlike magical quality.
Piper Gilles was stunning in a red Evita dress. She and Poirier had a stumble but delivered the mood of the program well.
Nathan Chen has peak hair at the moment, as someone (Jackie Wong?) noted. He’s good. Sharp edgework, a fast combination spin, and then — wow, what was that? It was just a single rotation jump, some sort of inside edge involved — maybe a walley? And it went by so quickly within a step sequence, just a fluent little slip of the blade, gone like a breath before I understood what I was seeing.
Knierim and Frazier looked invincible. You would never know they were skating in a show — they brought so much ammunition to their program, you’d think they were at worlds again. Big triple twist, a long and beautifully held back outside death spiral, and… was that a throw triple flip? Who is doing throw triple flips on the last day of a tour? Heh. They were awesome.
Alissa Czisny was smooth and lovely. I think she must have been 19 the last time I saw her skate.
Jason Brown lit up the arena as usual with his easy charisma that’s so good. He has the whole crowd with him the way Scott Hamilton did when he was touring, but there’s something about Jason’s air that’s more generous, less ruthless.
It was fun to see Loena Hendrickx live for the first time. I suspect I’d like her competitive skating better; I like when her focus shows through.
Ilia Malinin made me laugh. He looks so disgruntled when he’s forced to be earthbound, like he can’t wait to hurtle through the air again as he was meant to. He certainly looks the most comfortable mid-jump or when he’s leaping into giant moves like tuck axels or carving out his claimed space with aggressive spread eagles. When he spins, he looks like he’s revving up until one day, he’ll just lift into orbit.
And then it was time for Kurt’s first solo and unexpectedly, when I saw his beautiful graying hair and the laugh lines carved into his face, I started crying. He reminded me of my friend Doug Mattis, who died earlier this year at age 56, the same age Kurt is now. They were friends. Doug told me once about a time Kurt invited him and another pro skater, Christopher Nolan, to hang out backstage at a Stars on Ice show and they did axels in roller skates together. I had expected to feel emotional about Kurt’s retirement, but I had forgotten about how after Doug died, I’d wished I could thank Kurt for being a friend to him.
Kurt positively hunted the two double axels he did in this program — he was not going to leave the ice without them — but the sequence I’d love to see again was near the end, a series of four very simple back edges all different from each other, each held with a slightly different body position. Quiet, powerful moment of beauty. The simplicity of those four edges was a masterstroke. The audience gave him the first of a few standing ovations he got this night.
Who could follow Kurt after that? SATOKO MIYAHARA. I had never seen her skate live before and I was swept away by her performance. So much presence. Her double axel was low but perfect, a powerful line drive.
Kurt returned to start off a group number by skating compulsory figures. That was emotional. Once the others joined, he said goodbye to each of them. He seemed to point to Ilia as if saying, “The next great one.” When he reached Jason Brown, it seemed that they spoke to each other — being together in the moment was more important than choreography. He reached his wife Alissa last. She was there for him the whole show — you could see them touching each other sometimes, checking in with each other, enjoying their one opportunity to be in a touring ensemble as a couple.
After intermission, we had a series of James Bond ensembles and programs in the classic themed choreography tradition that Stars on Ice does so well. It was sleek and glamorous. A number of skaters took on the Bond role, but the true Bond was Kurt, of course.
Isabeau Levito returned with Saint-Saens’ Swan, a double axel and a pretty illusion spin. Jason Brown’s second number included a triple flip right in front of where I was sitting — ahhh. Gilles and Poirier did a charming John Denver program; I wish I could read my notes about a part I loved, but oh well, scrawling in the dark is not always easy. On his way out from this group number, Kurt saw my seatmate recording him on her phone and mugged for her gorgeously, speeding along without looking where he was going because he was maintaining eye contact with her and holding a pose, and he was so busy being a ham that he almost missed the exit. It was a special moment.
Another fast powerful double axel from Satoko, more giant delayed single jumps and aggressive leaps from Ilia. Knierim and Frazier with more competition-quality skating: big triple twist, lots of air in dismounts from lifts, another throw triple flip, even side-by-side spins. Loena Hendrickx in a catsuit and sparkly top, speed-skating out to center ice for a club number with — I think it was a Rippon triple lutz? — at the opposite end of the rink from me, really nice fast one-foot twizzles, clean and arched layback into Biellmann.
Kurt with his 30-year retrospective program, as always amplifying even the tiniest musical beat with his quick movements and unerring toepicks. Nathan Chen taking the mic to acknowledge Kurt and sounding refreshingly low-key about it, more like a student body president than a show business smooth talker who’s trying to sell you something. Glorious Chock and Bates number to David Bowie. I can’t get enough of Madison Chock’s fierce beauty.
Nathan Chen had the last solo spot with beautiful triple flip and lutz. Then the ensemble returned for the finale — Kurt Browning whooped aloud. My seat was right by the skaters’ entrance so I saw all evening that his face was almost twisted with the emotion of this being his goodbye. There was no pretending that he wasn’t overcome by all those decades of memories. He even took the mic at the end, which I hadn’t expected, and thanked IMG and Byron Allen and Scott Hamilton.
Why does it always hurt so much to love figure skating? It’s a beautiful hurt, but it pierces.
Back when Kurt was competing in the early 1990s and fighting injuries, I didn’t know how long his body would last after all those triples and quads. He was the first person to land a quad in competition. I wouldn’t have predicted that he’d still be holding his own in the futuristic-sounding year of 2023. He makes middle age look beautiful. He made it — he hung in there — he was able to muster one last tour of death drops and double axels, and end things well, on his own terms.
Stars on Ice, February 21, 2003, Philadelphia, PA
Here’s one from the archives: a review I wrote of a Stars on Ice show 20 years earlier for rec.sport.skating.ice.figure. Kurt Browning was already a veteran cast member by then.
Stars on Ice was a feast of good pro skating. Yummmmm.
Opening number:
Eldredge did a triple axel right off the bat. Whoa.
I think Yagudin might have done a quad toe-triple toe. Then again, with him I find it hard to tell — all his jumps are so huge. Most of his jumps tonight were toes, with one doubled salchow, a triple flip, and something that was a triple lutz or lip. No loop attempts.
Browning and Eldredge did mirror 2axels. It sort of didn’t work; it really highlighted how different their double axels are. Eldredge’s is classic with a perfect trajectory and evenly spaced rotations throughout. Browning’s goes up big with a delay and then turns lightning-quick and lands with finesse. Both are stunning but they don’t match at all.
As the opening finished, Yagudin snapped on a pair of black leather gloves and just that in itself was so hot. He was brought a leather jacket and temporarily turned into Stojko with “Born to be Wild.”
“Bed of Roses” is perhaps the cheesiest Bon Jovi hit ever, but it worked for Ina and Zimmerman — the emptiness of the song was good for skating with tricks. Ina has learned to use head tilt better, and they’re a good pro pair. I don’t trust John Zimmerman’s edges any more than I ever have; his unsteadiness is especially evident in this company.
Sale and Pelletier’s pinpoint precision astonishes me. “Come Fly With Me” is packed with choreographic goodies. Their timing is awesome. And you never, ever have to doubt Pelletier’s edges. He has the most solid outside edges of anyone here. So strong. Big old throw triple loop in this program, too.
Eldredge did a program to Kulik-like noise, er, music, that didn’t emotionally engage me at all until the end, when he did a smoking-hot footwork sequence more than once around the rink perimeter, at speed, into a combination spin ending in scratch. I think the program was quite long, too, and he never let up — he is Stamina Man.
Gorsha Sur and John Zimmerman were props in a tribute to Katarina Witt’s stardom. She wore a chartreuse dress with one shoulder strap carefully tailored to look like her dress is moments away from slipping off her body entirely. Heartstopping. The one true diva of the ice.
Yagudin. “Overcome.” My God. Maybe no one else could achieve the same truth with the section in which he prostrates himself on the ice and reaches up, struggling. It made me think of a caterpillar helpless to resist the call into the chrysalis, asking agonized of its Creator, why do you demand this of us? Of all of us? The faith, the pain, the fear, the deathlike surrender again and again? Yagudin asked the question with every move, his body heaving with undulations to the heartbeat sounds like a tide, even his final spins that rose and fell in position like the breaths, the heartbeats.
Then the one false note in the show, Meno and Sand’s icky skate to “I’m Your Man,” riddled with many crotch lifts and unwelcome kink. Blech.
Browning followed with sweeping lobes, a big delay 2axel, a 3toe.
Browning always seems to have a slippery relationship to his edges. He’s nimble, not rooted like a giant oak the way Pelletier is — there’s a tension there always, an adversarial discontent with the ice, a movement quality of tensing, holding, falling, rising again. Unlike Yagudin’s great-hearted striving, Browning’s skating this year reminds me that we all lose the battle with Fate in the end — something in Browning’s pensiveness always seems to remember that. Perfect 3toe and then another; spread eagle on flats into inside spread eagle into a flurry of a straightline sequence all done in an almost incidental held note, as though Browning were sneaking something in.
“Who dares to judge me” with Eldredge emceeing the joint appearance of Sale/Pelletier and Berezhnaya/Sikharulidze. To me, the highlight of the show, Eldredge speaking about “the space between my sheer will and hope” in a voice resonant with authority. He accented his comments with a split flip as searing as a shot of whiskey, and then a double axel so clean it was like a jack-knife opening and shutting. The two Olympic champion pairs are perfect in such different ways. S/P are so accurate, can throw in so many reversals and intricacies; B/S so big and still they look almost leisurely as they float by.
“A Little Less Conversation,” with cowboy-hatted women dancing with the audience. We got Jamie Salé, who was far better than the others (Kyoko Ina was kind of fun to watch, but looked more like a jumpy cheerleader than a cowgirl). Then the cowboys. It looked a lot more like straight rodeo in person. Without the benefit of television close-up, John Zimmerman wasn’t as cute as in the telecast, and I couldn’t tear my eyes off Gorsha Sur anyway, who was and is always perfection in these group numbers.
Only Katarina Witt could follow the Full Monty on Ice ending. Big double axel, outside camel into layback change sit firm and centered.
Eldredge’s “Miserere” was a return to classic Eldredge with all the booming emotional highlights we know and love, and that familiar fluid drape of the upper body over those steely inexorable legs. His Russian splits electrified me with their goodness.
Renee Roca personified a prayer while Gorsha Sur demonstrated all the different ways he’s found to balance, and I pondered a social experiment in which Sur was persuaded to sire many offspring for the betterment of the human race.
Any fears that Browning’s red-hatted clown number would be a retread of old ground disappeared as I marveled over him miming being reeled in on a fishing line. By the ending, in which he did four pratfalls in a row, I was just shaking my head at the genius of the man (and I usually hate pratfalls). My standing ovation of the evening.
Obligatory Sandra Bezic prom number with the B-listers (Roca and Sur, Ina and Zimmerman, Meno and Sand).
Berezhnaya/Sikharulidze’s Elvis/Marilyn puzzler, in which all was forgiven after they landed the world’s hugest fastest throw triple loop that elicited a loud gasp from the crowd. If I hadn’t known that Berezhnaya was supposed to be someone, I’d have swooned over the warm blonde curls and the filmy white dress. A great look for her. Loved her statuesque still pose during the airborne forward inside death spiral, and the whole jive straightline sequence at the end to “Hound Dog.”
S/P redeemed the cheesiness of their Journey music with one of their pure triple twists and Pelletier’s usual clean sex appeal writ large, slink factor and beefcake and brains all in one.
Yagudin’s race car program. I’ve always wondered how people feel when they break open a valuable bottle of wine they’ve been saving for decades and finally drink it all. My soul drinks in the sight of Yagudin performing, and maybe every step is destroying his body more.
Finale quite good, starting with the company-wide tribute to Yagudin’s famous forward straightline steps. Katarina Witt snuck in a pat to David Pelletier’s butt (not part of the choreography). SOI’s synch formations have steadily gotten better every year.
There were some nitpicks — I felt Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze were underused, and I don’t think it’s necessary for Sale and Pelletier to do cheese and sleaze — but it was a top-quality show overall. Thank you to SOI for showing us these great pairs.