Tommy Steenberg » Uncategorized

Young Artist Showcase Videos

tommy — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:56:58 +0000

I recently qualified for the 2010 Young Artist Showcase, a choreography competition on the ice for aspiring choreographers. There are eight contestants that will receive ratings for four different challenges over four weeks (starting June 13th), and the two contestants with the highest ratings will compete at the finals in Blaine, MN. So, I am really happy to have the opportunity to share my choreographic work with others this summer!

The first video is self-performed choreography. The first piece is an exhibition program I made in early 2009; the second piece is a segment of a potential competitive program that I decided not to use this year; third is kind of a demo for a short program, and fourth is the beginnings of a new exhibition program. The third and fourth clips were pretty “on the spot” in that I brought two pieces of music to the rink that I liked a few Fridays ago and had one hour to see what I could do. Since I really liked the third piece I developed it further, and I plan to do the same with the fourth piece, too.

This is my profile for the competition. It is supposed to be a “getting to know me” piece haha

This shows a few programs I choreographed for skaters this spring. These were competed on May 1st and all three of these girls won their events!

Stuff

tommy — Mon, 03 May 2010 22:13:25 +0000

Everything is happening all at once! Right now I am trying to focus on the final week and a half of school/finals while I stay on top of my skating. About a week ago I exhibited my new long program at the Mount Vernon Rec Center in Alexandria. I am content with my performance but certainly have some work to do! The big highlight for me was landing a triple axel-double toe combination and skating in front of a couple of my dance professors and friends. For my next long program outing this weekend, I hope to execute better spins and increase my base value jump-wise.

This past Friday and Saturday I performed in the May Concert as part of the GMU Dance company in the piece “Upon Thinking (And Only of Yourself)” choreographed by Caroline Yost. A lot of friends and family came to support me, and I really enjoyed performing with others and being on stage.

This weekend I also had several students compete at our local ISI competition, and they all did a great job! I used a few of the performances for part of my Grassroots to Champions Young Artist Showcase Application, a skating choreography contest that I hope to be a part of this summer–I will get the videos of my choreography loaded onto the site soon!

Performance Dates

tommy — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:08:52 +0000

This month is all about preparation for me because I have very contrasting dance pieces and skating programs that I will be performing very soon! After I debut my new long program at Cherry Blossom in a few weeks, I have 2 performances at the Harris Theater at GMU on April 30th and May 1st. I can’t wait to perform a modern piece on stage! Partnering and unison (among other demands) are fairly new concepts to me, but I have been working hard and cannot wait for this experience. Also, I plan to show my new short program at the May Day Competition in Laurel, MD towards the first weekend of May. Throughout all of these events, I will be sure to check back in to let everyone know how things are going!

Home After a Productive Weekend

tommy — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:25:16 +0000

I flew back home last night from the G2C Seminar in Bismarck, and it went really well. All of the coaches and students were great to work with, and we discussed a plan to get me back out there this summer! I was lucky that I brought some of the Virginia sunshine with me because the weather was really nice, but there was some left over snow on the ground from a prior snowfall. This morning I had to wake up early for classes, skating coaching, and more classes until 10pm tonight, so needless to say I’m exhausted–but it’s all totally worth it!

Competing this April!

tommy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:48:11 +0000

Over the past month I have been piecing together a new long program with the goal of performing relatively soon. The theme is “Western” and was originally inspired by my friend Marci who has always wanted to skate to it (but was told that it’s too manly haha). Although I usually do not begin competing until the summer, I have kept in great shape this spring and will compete my long program sometime between April 22-24 at the 2010 Cherry Blossom Invitational. I haven’t participated in this competition since I was fourteen!!–but am really looking forward to doing something local. So, anyone in the area please come watch!! I feel really up for this early challenge to jump start a great year =)

Upcoming G2C Update

tommy — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:31:27 +0000

I’m heading out to Bismarck, North Dakota from March 26-28 to run a Grassroots to Champions seminar with Sheila Thelen (G2C alumni and inventor of Champion Cords). It’s really fun working with new kids and meeting new coaches. I will also be performing an exhibition program on the March 26th to Josh Groban’s “Remember When It Rained” to help kick off the weekend!

2010 Winter Olympics=Awesome

tommy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:23:10 +0000

I have lost so much sleep these past couple weeks from watching all of the live skating! I’ve been continually been telling all my friends at school to watch! I love seeing the sport and skaters get such great recognition.

Congratulations to Evan Lysacek on winning a gold medal for the USA! Also, to Johnny Weir for skating two clean programs–his long program in particular was one of my favorite Olympic programs.

I was really inspired by so many of the athletes…the strength of Joannie Rochette to skate to a bronze medal in her home country a few days after her mother’s death has been undoubtedly the most courageous Olympic moment. It was great to see the support and compassion that the media, audience, etc respected her with.

I thought Yu-Na Kim was flawless! It was great to see her reaction after two clean programs. Rachael and Mirai were awesome–as were Mao’s 3 triple axels (short and long combined)!! I feel like the top 7 or so performances were worthy of Olympic medals.

Seeing Shen and Zhao receive their Olympic Gold Medals was great–they have completed dozens of gold medal performances over the years, so this was a perfect way to finish a career for them. Both US teams were great! Amanda Evora learned to skate at Fairfax Ice Arena, my home rink–represent! haha

As for Ice Dance, I thought Tessa and Scott’s flamenco original dance was amazing. Congrats to Meryl and Charlie on a silver medal performance–this was another event with more than one gold medal worthy performance. Maybe I’m impartial, but I thought all three US teams skated particularly well haha I roomed with Evan Bates when he and his partner Emily won Jr Worlds, so to see them skate clean was great!

All in all, this Olympics definitely lived up to expectations and left me feeling really inspired (as you can probably tell)!!

Seattled in Spokane

tommy — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:42:05 +0000

I’m all settled in Spokane for Nationals! I got in last night and compete Friday night and Sunday afternoon. My practices have been fun so far–there was a pretty good audience today. I skate 23rd out of 23 skaters tomorrow night. It will be after 11:00PM by the time I compete, so I’m trying to stay up right now! Just got back from a nice bar&grill across the street, but I ate some of the groceries I just bought at the food store right before heading over…not the best idea in retrospect.

New Website!

tommy — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:05:52 +0000

Thanks for visiting my new website! I’d like to thank Andy Eiche for helping me to set up a more personal way to share my skating online. The site is still a work in progress, so be sure to come back to check out updates and to keep up with my training!