Alladin on Ice: ‘It’s a whole new world’
DRESS WARMLY AND ENJOY a magical, and free, ice-skating show, “Aladdin on Ice,” Saturday March 11 at 11 a.m. The Skating Club of Taos’ presentation will take place at Taos Youth and Family Center ice rink, 407 Paseo del Canon East.
The cast consists of the seasoned coaching staff and some 50 talented figure skating students, ranging from age 4 beginners to the US Figure Skating Adult Nationals Gold Medalists, Kat Carillo, as the Genie, and Judy Pearson as Jafar. Chuck Wright will fill the role of lead pairs dancer, and Elijah McNulty, a skilled precision skater will shine as Prince Ali.
When I arrived at the rink, I would discover that ice skating in Taos is for all ages. Pearson smiled at my surprise hearing that little ones as young as 4 old would be skating in the show. “My family lived in Boston,” she explained. There was a big dip in our yard. It would freeze over. We were told to get outside and skate. I was just 18 months old.” She looked out at the rink, empty now except for the private student. “This is our first ice show in two years,” she explained, somewhat wistfully. “And also our last for the season.”
The arena adapts to both autumn/ winter and spring/summer sports, Recreation Specialist Elias Cisneros had explained while I waited for Judy to finish a coaching session. Not only lessons on how to just stand up on skates are offered, but figure skating and precision skating instruction. Ice hockey and public skating are usually available from October through March.
“What happens after March?” I asked.
“We melt the ice,” Cisneros laughed. From April through October, on the transformed rink, both youth and adults roller skate, play basketball, engage in crafts activities in the rec hall in another section of the Center, and participate in the outdoor garden that Elias manages.
Skating on ice goes back a long way in human history. Various sources disagree, but the consensus is, it dates back to the Bronze Age, around 33001200 B.C.E. All skating historians tend to agree, however, that, in the long past, skates were made from the leg bones of large animals, with holes made at each end of the bone for the leather straps that were used to tie the skates on.
The skates were utilitarian, used to get across massive frozen rivers, lakes and, in Holland, canals that served as winter roads. In the 2020 Russian film, “Silver Skates,” the film’s promotion describes the story: “The son of a poor lamplighter in St. Petersburg treasures a pair of silver-plated skates inherited from his father. Unjustly fired, he joins a gang of pickpockets engaging in theft on the frozen canals and ...” of course, meets a nobleman’s daughter.
Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie is generally considered responsible for popularizing ice skating. Her first film, “One in a Million,” in 1937, a 20th Century Fox musical, also starred Adolphe Menjou and Don Ameche, with scenes from the first Winter Olympics Games, held in Germany, in 1936.
For readers or skaters interested in the genesis of the Aladdin story, it is one of the ancient tales included in what has come to be known as “One Thousand and One Nights” or “The Arabian Nights,” usually attributed to Antoine Galland, a scholar and diplomat who served as a secretary to the French ambassador to Constantinople in the 17th century, and the first European translator of “The Arabian Nights.”