Ice Theatre of New York (ITNY) will perform in Inspiration on Ice at the Buckskill Winter Club at 178 Buckskill Road, East Hampton, NY, on Saturday, January 8, 2022, at 6:30 pm. The program will feature ITNY performer and Buckskill Winter Club Skating Director Sarah France, as well as many local skaters. ITNY performances will include:
- Skating artist Valerie Levine, who will perform “Amour, Amour,” inspired by the work of contemporary dance choreographer Jody Sperling and influenced by the art of Loie Fuller, one of the great pioneers of American dance.
- “Dance with Me” featuring Liz Schmidt and Danil Berdnikov.
- “I Will Fall For You” featuring Sarah France ice dancing her own choreography to the music of Woodkid.
- Skating artist Armen Agaian, who will perform “Take Five,” choreographed for Armen by Eliot Halverson. The music is composed by Paul Desmond in the classic recording of the David Brubeck Quartet.
- Junior Ensemble member and National solo ice dance competitor Milly Wasserman, who will skate her own choreography in a solo ice dance piece.
- Liz Schmidt, who will perform “When Atoms Embrace”, a solo choreographed and costumed by original John Curry Theatre of Skating member, Lorna Brown. The piece is set to Music by Arvo Part’s “Spiegel Im Spiegel.”
This program is supported, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy C. Hochul and the New York State Legislature. ITNY is also supported by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and NYC Council Member Mark Levine and Dance/NYC‘s Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund. Additionally, ITNY receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Lisa McGraw Figure Skating Foundation, the Will Sears Foundation, and its generous private patrons.
About the Performers
Armen Againan joined Ice Theatre of New York as an artist in 2018. He has been ice skating since 2002 developing into a 5-time National Champion in his native country of Georgia and participated in the Junior World Championships three times. He has also participated in the 2013 Youth Olympic games, the Junior Grand Prix (2012-2015), and the 2016 European Championships. When not performing, Armen works as a skating coach in New York.
Danil Berdnikov is from the city of Samara, Russia. Berdnikov was a part of the junior national team and competed within Russia until he completed high school. He then decided to move to Moscow to continue his education and join Stage Entertainment Russia for an opportunity to begin performing as an ice skater. Performing for an audience, he fell in love with skating in a new way, so he has continued to skate professionally for the past eight years. Over the course of his professional skating career, he had the privilege of working for Willy Bietak Productions and Wheeler Productions in the US, Stageworks Worldwide Production in the UK, and Holiday on Ice Productions and Dynamic Shows Entertainment in the EU. Stage Entertainment Russia has brought him many different opportunities, including the chance to travel the world and do what he truly loves. He is very grateful to his parents, coaches, choreographers, and fellow skaters who have supported him along the way, and he is very excited to fulfill another incredible dream of performing for Ice Theatre of New York, Inc.
Sarah France, U.S. Figure Skating triple gold medalist, national ice dance competitor, and six-time US Open Professional Figure Skating Championships competitor, realized one of her childhood inspirations when she joined ITNY in the spring of 2019. Before taking the ice, she explored her love of movement, studying ballet and eventually performing professionally in modern dance and several other disciplines as well as skating and teaching. France has been an ice dance coach and choreographer since 1998, working with Regional, Sectional, National, and International competitors across all skating disciplines at Shattuck St. Mary’s in Minnesota, where she remains faculty-member-at-large. She also serves as Director of Skating at City Ice Pavilion in Long Island City. A native of Pittsburgh, PA, she now resides in NYC.
Valerie Levine has collaborated on ITNY events for the past two decades and has been roller-skating as well as dancing tap, jazz, and ballet since the age of 4. She started training in figure skating at 11 and went on to compete and test until she graduated high school, turning down Disney On Ice to pursue her bachelor’s degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) instead of going on tour. At 19, she earned her Gold level Senior Ladies Moves and Pre-golds in ice dance before skating professionally as an ice girl for the NHL New York Rangers and Islanders. While earning her BS in Product Management Textiles from FIT, she minored in dance and trained at Broadway Dance Center in many dance styles, which led to an off-ice career as a professional belly dancer, ballroom dancer, Brazilian samba dancer, and more. She currently teaches and performs all of these styles worldwide as well as managing her own entertainment company, Valerina Dance.
Elizabeth (Liz) Schmidt has been skating with ITNY since 2017. Luscious edges, artistic dynamic movement, and traditional ice dancing inform her skating and professional career which began in 2013 at the age of 18, performing internationally in Germany and across the US. A Japanese/German American skater who hails from Chicago, IL, she recently moved from San Francisco to New York City. A U.S. Figure Skating Double Gold medalist in Freestyle and Moves in the Field, and a Silver medalist in Ice Dancing, Liz received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2018 and has exhibited her work across the Bay Area.
About Ice Theatre of New York
Founded by Moira North, ITNY’s mission is to celebrate and advance dance on ice as performance art. Through its performances in both traditional and site-specific venues, ITNY presents ice dance that helps to open one’s eyes to seeing skating in new and unexpected ways. ITNY was the very first ice dance company to receive dance program funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
