The UAE’s figure skating team will be channelling their inner John Curry on December 6 and 7 with their latest show, Ice Factor. TOAD went to the rink to see what the spectacular is all about.
Showing off their latest silky smooth moves, Abu Dhabi will soon play host to some of the UAE’s most talented figure skaters as they bring their newest collaborative show, Ice Factor, to town. The comical and entertaining showcase of the UAE figure skating team will be an X Factor inspired story of talents auditioning in one of the globe’s most famous competitions.
The mock talent competition will include character appearances by Guns N’ Roses, the Spice Girls and One Direction, who will all be trying to impress judges Steven Tyler, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.
The UAE’s ‘Ice Princess’ Zahra Lari will once again be starring in the production. Zahra says, ‘For the show, I will be a lot of characters – to name a few I will be Bruno Mars, Queen and One Direction at different points in the production.’
The annual showcase is now in its eighth year. It was formed in 2006, and is still being directed by Noemi Bedo as a way to promote figure skating in the country, and to give the national team a chance to strut their stuff in front of large crowds. ‘We push the skaters to do their best in the shows, including the highest technical level they can reach’ Noemi says. ‘We are trying to teach them new things they can do in the show. We have three months of rehearsals which is plenty of time to learn new tricks.‘
The show is designed to be fun for everyone, and is a great day out for the family. Noemi says ‘It is mainly kids that come to watch the show, but there are parents that come with them. We recognise that so we do put some little jokes into the show for the parents, so they enjoy the production and want to come too. We are going to parody some of the singers, including dressing Justin Bieber up as a baby, we like to keep it entertaining. We love shows. Competitions are different, and you work by yourself, whereas shows are the whole team coming together. We are like a big family,’ Zahra says.
Noemi has worked on the show since its inception, and remembers how much of a success the first show was. ‘The first show was actually only about 20 skaters, it was a small show we did for National Day. We saw that the response we got from the public was really positive and the skaters enjoyed it as well, they also improved really quickly afterwards. So we decided to hold the event on an annual basis and it has grown every year.’
Each year, the themes of the shows have been unusual and entertaining, Noemi says this year’s came from enthusiasm and a little desperation, which luckily worked out well in the end. ‘Well to be honest, I ran out of ideas [laughs]. We did a history of music, we did movies, we did fairytales, we did cartoons and then I was like okay, what is still left that we can do? We hadn’t done popular bands and singers, and that has had a really good response.’
The skaters use the opportunity not only to showcase their tricks and talents to the Abu Dhabi community, but also to harness their skills in a creative way. Zahra says ‘I think we do improve because usually during the year, we are focusing on the technical aspects of skating, and when we are doing the show it’s more about the artistic part of it. I think that we do need to focus a lot on that too, because skating is about both the artistic side of the sport and its technical aspects.’
The team work hard every year to produce the best possible product and love working together. ‘The coaches work so hard on this too, coming in in the morning, sometimes we don’t listen to them but they still try to help us so much. Noemi is the best coach ever, she is so great to work for,’ Zahra explains with a smile.
‘We do have a surprise in the show this year as well. I can’t say what it is, you will have to come and see,’ Zahra says when asked why we should come to this year’s show. The hilarious comedy is fun for everyone, with last year’s shows selling out. ‘Buy your tickets before we sell out, it’s going to be a great show. It’s something different – you won’t find anything similar in Abu Dhabi this year.’
Tickets Dhs50, Zayed Sports City, www.zsc.ae.
