Poised for a fairytale

By REBECCA BARRY

Suggesting a professional ice skater take time off is like telling a smoker to give up cigarettes.

When Russian ice star Katya (Ekaterina) Murugova gouged a chunk out of her leg with the blade of her skate, she carried on through the next two acts of the show.

"I needed to because there was just one Sleeping Beauty," she says matter-of-factly, her pale blue eyes widening at the thought she should have done anything else. After the curtain call she was raced to hospital, where she received 24 stitches and was ordered to stay off her feet for two weeks. The next day she performed the matinee session.

"People forget figure skating is a very dangerous sport," says Tony Mercer, who is directing Murugova as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Wild Rose production of Nutcracker on Ice. "They're racing around that ring at about 30, 40 miles an hour."

There's not a lot of room to pick up speed, either. For the past 10 years the Russian Ice Stars - a troupe of the some of the world's best skaters who boast more than 200 medals between them - have performed on a theatre stage about half the size of a skating rink. Yet they hurtle around the ice, taking off in spinning leaps at the very edges of the stage.

"Rinks are cold, draughty barns," Mercer explains. "And if you're sitting down the end of the ice arena, you're going to miss what the skaters are doing at the opposite end. You can create an atmosphere inside a theatre which is very hard to do at the ice arena, you can light it and decorate it beautifully."

It means they must build their rinks everywhere they travel, a process that takes 34 hours, 14,000 litres of water, 2500 litres of anti-freeze and 15km of refrigeration piping to build.

Although a review of their recent Sydney performance suggested the production suffered budget constraints - "Sets by the respected Australian designer Eamon d'Arcy look like cheap Christmas cards" - it praised the skaters' skill and dynamic commitment.

It's a dedication that extends to rehearsals, which run from 7am to 5pm, six days a week. The skaters have now been on the road non-stop for almost two years, first taking Sleeping Beauty and now the Nutcracker around the world. Three of the skaters, including Murugova, bring their children on tour.

The show remains loyal to the traditional Russian fairytale set to the music of Tchaikovsky, in which a Christmas party is interrupted by a mysterious guest with magical powers. He gives the daughter of the family a nutcracker doll, which is transformed by her love back to a handsome prince who takes her on a journey to the Land of Snowflakes.

But to call it a ballet on ice is somewhat restrictive, says Mercer. The show features stars such as Ioulia Barsoukova, the rhythmic gymnast who won gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and Anjelika Krylova, who has won 20 major figure-skating competitions and a silver medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics.

"It's ballet, it's acrobatics, it's circus on ice," agrees Murugova, who joined the skating troupe nine years ago when she was 21. In 1987 she won the World Figure Skating Championships and has won the Russian National Championships five times. She took up skating at the age of 4 because in Russia, "every girl wants to be figure skating or gymnast. I don't know about boys, maybe more hockey player," she giggles.

Ice hockey didn't interest her skating partner, 23-year-old Estonian-born Valdis Mintals, who taught himself to skate because of his country's lack of coaches. At 15 he started pairs skating and entering competitions - last year he'd clocked up around 30 - winning the Estonian Cup every year from 1994-2001.

Most of the troupe complement their skating training with ballet lessons; the men must do strength-building exercise so they can lift their partners above their heads with wrestlers' ease. Mintals' arms look strong enough to crush a man, yet on ice he possesses the grace of a floating leaf.

Mercer's own training is somewhat unconventional. He began his career as a semi-professional footballer in Britain and developed his theatre hobby into a full-time career following a serious leg injury.

In the early 1980s he worked as a tour and production manager for artists including Dionne Warwick, the Supremes and the Commodores.

He is now the artistic director of all of Wild Rose Ice Theatre's productions and refers to himself as "the nasty director".

Murugova smiles as if to prove him wrong. "Sometimes he is," she says.

"Have you signed your contract, Katya?" he replies before trying to convince me the ice is smashed into pieces at the end of each show and sold to nightclubs and bars.

Performance

* What: The Nutcracker on Ice

* Where: Civic Theatre, Auckland

* When: Friday September 5 until Sunday September 14

* Bookings: Ticketek