Learn Some Fancy Ice-Skating Moves with Chicago Star Bonnie Langford
The twinkling lights are starting to come out, the holiday music is playing in stores and a craving for hot cocoa is replacing our normal need for a java fix. Yep, the most wonderful time of the year is almost here. This year we want to impress our friends with some fancy moves at the ice rink. We enlisted Bonnie Langford, Broadway’s own Roxie Hart in Chicago, to show us how to do a simple twirl (that looks super impressive!) at Rockefeller Center’s glorious rink. The British star definitely knows her way around the ice: she was a favorite on the U.K.’s reality TV show Dancing on Ice, where she literally learned her moves in front of millions of viewers. Wanna strut your stuff like this red, hot merry murderess? Follow Langford’s lead. Hotcha! Photos by Jenny Anderson for Broadway.com
GET READY TO SHOW OFF
“I was first on skates when they asked me to do Dancing on Ice four weeks before they went live to air. The show made me get bitten by the ice bug. Before you learn this spin I’ll teach you, you should be able to make lemon shapes with your feet on the ice: just do a little outward and inward movement with your blades. Now you're ready to spin!”
STEP ONE: GET IN POSITION
“This is a very simple, two-foot spin. You can do it from standing still. You will use momentum and get the feeling of the ice. The starting position is standing still with your feet parallel. Bend your knees and keep them soft. The thing that I found so difficult about skating is you use such a flat foot: you don’t turn out or point your feet—all of the things I learned as a lifelong dancer, I had to unlearn to skate!”
STEP TWO: NO JAZZ HANDS REQUIRED
“Take your arms across your body. As you move your arms and bend your knees, you will automatically spin. It’s a very simply, easy movement that doesn’t require much force. I know you think you won’t start spinning, but you will. It’s all in the momentum. You can’t really stand very still on ice, it’s slippy. If you have your feet slightly turned in—so your front blades are pointing to each other—you will automatically turn around.”
STEP THREE: AIN’T NO STOPPING YOU NOW
“The momentum will slow down and stop you. If you want to control it a little bit, just gradually take the weight off your legs and lower your arms. The only thing that will make this seem natural is to keep getting on the ice and practice, practice, practice! We all thought we would be applauded for standing upright our first day [on Dancing on Ice], but I was spinning and being swung around like a baseball bat very early on in the process.”
STEP FOUR: RELAX
“Even the simplest things can look impressive on the ice. The only thing is that if you get too fancy, you may fall over very quickly. Take it slow and relax, which I think is probably the hardest thing to say because the one thing you feel when you’re on ice is tense. But really, the one thing you must do is relax and bend your knees. You don’t have to do flashy things in order to look comfortable on the ice. Roxie Hart would love this. She would want to do it to get noticed!”
