Customer Reviews

Torvill & Dean - Path To Perfection: World Ice Dancing Champions [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been a devoted fan of Torvill & Dean since I first saw them. My background is in dance (off the ice) and I especially appreciate T&D's choreography, which I consider to be some of the most innovative and beautiful I've seen, on or off the ice. This documentary shows their development as competitors and artists, through the World Championships that preceded the 1984 Olympics, in which they won the gold. Complete performances of some of their most memorable routines are shown, including "Mack and Mabel," "Barnum," "Paso Doble" and "Bolero."

When I bought this video, I already owned "Torvill and Dean: Face the Music" (1995), which I love because it shows T&D just before they retired, at the height of their artistic maturity. However, the camera work in that video can be aggravating, in that the camera angle changes every few seconds, at times making it impossible to figure out what the skaters are doing. By contrast, the camera work in "Path To Perfection" is typical sports coverage style (you see everything), and I was very happy to finally be able to say, many times, "So THAT's what that movement is!" (But I recommend buying both videos, as well as T&D's autobiography.)

As for the non-performance parts of the documentary, the interviews with T&D and the people who influenced or observed their careers are sometimes interesting, sometimes not so interesting, but they all contribute to this portrait of the best ice dancers ever.

Although I've had this video for years, I found it very interesting. I was only nine years old when Torvill & Dean won the Olympic gold medal in 1984. So of course I couldn't remember them skating thier routines in the early 1980's. I remember when I saw thier free dance in 1994, there was one move where they glide across the ice and they moved thier feet back and forth. Somehow, that move looked familiar. So when I watched "Path to Perfection" there was a similar move in thier 1982 free dance, "Mack and Mable". The difference here was that they changed direction from forwards, to backwards, and then forwards again. When I saw that, I said to myself, "That's where I saw that move!" I must have been watching the 1982 world championships! I was only seven years old at the time!

Anyway, I had a chance to see "Mack and Mable", "Barnum", and the "Paso Doble". "Barnum" eventually became one of my favorite routines. "Paso Doble" showed me what exactly an Original Set Pattern dance was. For your information, an original set pattern dance is a series of dace steps repeated two or three times. When I saw T&D skate in 1994, the OSP, as it was called, was replaced with an original dance. There was no repitition of dance steps in the original dance as there was in the OSP.

This video is a good buy for any skating fan, especially for T&D fans. It tells you about where they came from, and thier triumphs in the early 1980's. I would also recommend buying thier autobiography as well. It tells you more about what they have done since 1984, including thier bid for a second Olympic gold medal after spending a decade as pros.

I bought this video after reading the warnings by other viewers of the poor video quality. I was still somewhat taken aback, however, when I popped the tape in the vcr. It will be a shock to anyone used to a digital signal from a satellite, DVD or frankly even a good quality vcr. HBO Video and the BBC made no attempt to remaster the video or audio for that matter. Both are very poor. If I rated it on this alone, I would've given it 1 star.

Having said all that, however, I still very much enjoyed the tape. You do get to learn how T&D started, the sacrifices they made, and the triumph they became. Some of the interviews could have been excluded and the BBC interviewer apparently believes that good technique is asking an inane question, sticking the boom mike in the subject's face and hope they're too polite to decline to answer. For example, I exploded with laughter when early in the tape and T&D's career, he asked the male member of the Ukranian ice dancing team, (who were the World Champions at the time of the interview) "when did he realize T&D had so much talent?" The skater replied somewhat miffed that he barely knew them and had only seen them skate once or twice; the BBC interviewer then proceeded to ask the female member the same question !!

I'd recommend this video if only to watch Torvill and Dean skate the Pase Doble routine where Dean conceptually treats Torvill as his cape. These two were the Michael Jordan of ice skating. People hadn't seen their like before and haven't since....

Great clips from competitions, and some of them show complete programs. Saves fans of T & D a lot of money on competition videos!

I thought the video beautiful. I would have like to see more of their skating because I think they are the best ever, even better than the famous Russian couple that skated at the same time or a bit earlier.

No one skates to Bolero the this couple, no one.

In the climax of their phenomenal careers, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the 1984 Olympic gold medal in Ice Dancing and set the standard against which every dance team since will forever be measured. Relive their stellar performances with this video and find the magic again! A must-have for skating and sports libraries

A comprehensive overview of their rise to olympic gold. excellent for those lovers of mack and mable barnum bolero (of course)

and their paso doble

From what little we could see of the skating it was excellent and proves that there still is no ice dancing couple in Torvill and Deans class.

Unfortunately the tape we received was of such awful quality that it was unwatchable (although we did suffer through it to see if it improved at any point). It constantly 'tracked' and was so full of static and snow that for much of the dancing we were left guessing what was going on.

It is too bad that HBO Home Video can't produce a better quality tape. I guess we will look for a DVD next time.

We hope to find a format where we can watch the performance and not have to suffer with the medium.

I watched T&D get sixes across the board for Bolero, back in 1983 in England. It made me cry. Although there are too many "talking heads" and not enough skating on the video, what there is, is wonderful. I purchased a tape which the seller said had only been viewed twice,(why?), and the quality was excellent for a recording more than twenty years old. Now I have to get "Face the Music". I am so glad these tapes are still available.

Torville and Dean are great partners in pair skating. They are so wonderfully in tune that it is a great pleasure to watch them perform.It is not so much their technical perfection than their artistry that I admire. They are able to capture the mood of music whether it be slow and romantic or light, jovial and vivacious and express it accordingly. This is a tape ice-skating fans should not miss.