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Author: Ellen Dunkel

  • At 18, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito is heading to the Olympics: ‘I feel like I really achieved my dream life’

    At 18, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito is heading to the Olympics: ‘I feel like I really achieved my dream life’

    Weeks before she had made the team, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito was confidently saying, “when I go to the Olympics …”

    Levito, 18, who lives and trains in Mount Laurel, wasn’t being cocky. She knew; she had done the math.

    Qualifying for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics was “definitely a realistic goal for me for the past three years,” said Levito, the 2023 U.S. champion and 2024 world silver medalist. “But I felt like I had to prove myself again after missing a bit of last season with an injury.

    “But when the season was going the way it was going, score-wise, internationally, I just had to skate the way I can skate at nationals and have it solidified.”

    Isabeau Levito performs during the women’s free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. She won the bronze medal.

    Indeed, with two clean programs and the bronze medal at the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships earlier this month, combined with strong results throughout the season and last year, that spot was hers.

    So when she met with Justin Dillon, chief high performance officer for U.S. Figure Skating, who told her reality show-style that she was on the team, Levito seemed happy but not surprised. Her head coach, Yulia Kuznetsova, however, was flooded with tears.

    “This is a huge dream for Yulia,” Levito said.

    Kuznetsova skated pairs while growing up in Russia and later in Disney on Ice, where she performed with her now-husband and another of Levito’s coaches, Slava Kuznetsov. But she never made it to that top frozen stage — until now as a coach.

    Kuznetsova also knew it was within reach. But the duo knew what they needed to do.

    Isabeau Levito performs during the women’s free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. She won the bronze medal.

    They opted this season for a triple flip combination instead of a triple Lutz. They thought the flip had a better chance of being called clean. (This worked out, but her individual triple Lutz also has been getting better results lately.)

    “Next season, I really want to switch things around and do new things and have more fun with it,” Levito said, “because this season it was a matter of doing all the skills that I honed, all the things that are the most comfortable and the most reliable. But next season, let’s just start risking things.”

    South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito named to the U.S. Winter Olympic team going to Milan, Italy

    First, there’s that big trip to her mother’s hometown of Milan, Italy, where her grandmother and other relatives still live and where she’ll compete with and against her friends: the other American women, Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu, and many international skaters.

    She’s looking forward to being fully immersed in the Olympic experience and having her family see her skate. The opening ceremony is Feb. 6.

    “I am going to run this [Olympic] village,” she said. “This is going to be so fun.”

    She’s read about the village and watched TikToks from the Summer Games.

    “But I really have no idea what the Olympic Village is going to look like. That’s why I’m so excited to get there and explore it,” she said.

    Most of the ice sports, including figure skating, will be in Milan. The snow and sliding sports, plus curling, will be 250 miles away in Cortina and other mountain regions. This Olympics will be held in six villages across northern Italy.

    Before nationals, Levito had a lot of obligations. There were days when film crews came into the rink and stayed all day, cutting into her training time.

    South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito wins bronze at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a clean program

    The results were viral social media videos for sponsors such as Red Bull (she compares skills with a hockey player) and Everlane (she answers rapid-fire questions while getting ready to get on the ice at the Igloo Ice Rink in Mount Laurel).

    Now she’s back to a more typical schedule of skating for hours every day.

    “Everything’s exactly the same,” she said of her days on the ice. “What’s different, though, is how exciting it is going to the rink every day, being that I’m actually training for the Olympics right now.”

    Does Olympic prep include getting a tattoo of the rings, as so many athletes do?

    “I just don’t know if I would get a tattoo in general,” Levito said. “I think I’m going to start with the Olympic necklace,” which many Olympians sport.

    “If I did get a tattoo, it would be in such a hidden place, and it would be so tiny and microscopic. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘If that’s the circumstances I would get a tattoo under, maybe I should think about it for a while.’”

    Meanwhile, time is ticking, meaning she needs to shop for some formal dresses to wear at Olympic banquets and choose things to pack for any downtime.

    Levito said she likely will bring a couple of books as well as her bedazzling kit. Besides all the sparkles she wears on the ice, she enjoys adding rhinestones to her various makeup cases and a comb.

    “It’s so soothing,” she said.

    Isabeau Levito skates her short program at the Grand Prix de France in October.

    There is a lot of talk of extra bling: The three American women have a good chance of earning medals at the Olympics. But Levito isn’t thinking about that.

    “The village is what I’m focused on,” she said. “And obviously skating my best, but I can already feel like I will.”

    The pressure also is off a bit. With Glenn winning her third consecutive national title and Liu as the reigning world champion, Levito feels she’s less in the spotlight than she was a couple of years ago, when she won nationals and the silver medal at worlds.

    But it’s all good.

    “Honestly to me right now my life feels like perfect,” she said. “Dare I say I love everything that’s in my life, like personal life, and just like my goals that I’ve achieved, whether I’m under the radar or not?

    “I’m just so happy right now. I feel like I really achieved my dream life that I had in mind maybe five or some years ago. I feel like I’m really living what I was wishing for or envisioning for myself, so I’m just beyond proud.”

  • South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito named to the U.S. Winter Olympic team going to Milan, Italy

    South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito named to the U.S. Winter Olympic team going to Milan, Italy

    On Sunday, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito was named to the United States’ 2026 Winter Olympic Team headed to Italy.

    The U.S. contingent was announced during Making the Team: Presented by Xfinity live on NBC and Peacock. This was the first time the figure skating team was named live on television, in the same manner as gymnastics historically is.

    Levito, 18, who lives and trains in Mount Laurel, shored up her spot with two elegant programs to Italian music and a bronze medal at last week’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. She was the U.S. champion in 2023 and the world silver medalist in 2024 in women’s singles.

    South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito wins bronze at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a clean program

    Levito was announced by 1960 Olympic champion Carol Heiss Jenkins before she skated last year’s beautiful Moon River short program.

    Joining Levito on the team are Amber Glenn, 26, of Plano, Texas, and Alysa Liu, 20, of Oakland, Calif.

    All three skated clean programs in the short and the free skate, or long program. Glenn won both segments, capturing her third straight national title.

    “It was an absolutely epic evening of skating,” two-time Olympian and commentator Johnny Weir said Saturday on NBC. “Last night all three women made me believe there could be a chance for each of them to stand on that [Olympic] podium.”

    Isabeau Levito performs during the women’s free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. She won the bronze medal.

    Liu, the silver medalist, is a 2022 Olympian who retired from skating shortly after those Games. She made a big splash by returning to the ice last year, winning the world championships in her first season back.

    The three are good friends, which is a change from the win-at-any-cost rivalries of the past. That era was punctuated by the 1994 Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding matchup at the U.S. Championships in Detroit, when Harding’s ex-husband plotted to have Kerrigan hit in the knee.

    Competitors are not always rivals. Just ask the top American women’s figure skaters, Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn.

    On Friday night, Levito and Liu watched and cheered on Glenn, the last to skate, and the three celebrated together in the kiss and cry, where skaters and their coaches wait to receive scores, after Glenn’s win was confirmed.

    Levito also won a bronze medal at the 2022 nationals, but she was 14 then and too young to qualify for the Olympics.

    But this time is extra special, because Milan is the hometown of her mother, Chiara Garberi, and where her grandmother and other relatives still live. They will be able to watch her compete next month, Levito said in the news conference Friday night.

    South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito was announced as an Olympian on Sunday. She skated during the “Making Team USA” performance following the announcement.

    Even before nationals began, the Olympic spots were Levito, Glenn, and Liu’s to lose. The three had been dominating the women’s event for the last two years, the time period U.S. Figure Skating takes into account when selecting a team.

    But none gave in to the pressure.

    All said they are more excited than nervous about the Olympics.

    “I am just so excited and stoked about the [Olympic] village,” Levito said at Friday night’s news conference, when their spots were inevitable but not official. “I just know it’ll be the time of my life. I don’t even think I’m going to be worried about the reason I’m there for. That’s when I thrive best, when I’m distracted.”

    The rest of the Olympic figure skating team includes: Ilia Malinin, Maxim Naumov, and Andrew Torgashev in the men’s event; Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea and Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe in the pairs event; and Madison Chock and Evan Bates, Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko in the ice dance event.

    Pairs was the biggest question mark because two of the U.S. medalists are not U.S. citizens. They are Alisa Efimova, who won nationals with Misha Mitrofanov, and Daniil Parkman, who, with Katie McBeath, won the bronze medal. Both of those pairs were named to the teams going to the Four Continents Championships and the World Championships, which don’t require skaters to be citizens of the countries they represent.

  • South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito wins bronze at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a clean program

    South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito wins bronze at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a clean program

    Now it’s just a matter of dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. The team going to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, won’t be announced until Sunday. But South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito did everything necessary to make the team.

    Levito, 18, placed second in the free skate and third overall Friday night at the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis, after placing third in Wednesday night’s short program. But this was by no means any failure on her part. The top five women skated clean programs on both days.

    At the end of the evening, Amber Glenn won her third consecutive national title, landing triple axels in both programs. Alysa Liu, the 2025 world champion and a two-time national champion, won silver. Two-time national champion Bradie Tennell placed fourth, which in the United States also is a medal, the pewter.

    South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito looks to vault herself onto the Olympic team at this week’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships

    Levito, who lives and trains in Mount Laurel, charmed in both of her programs, set to Italian music. Friday’s long program was a light but dramatic piece, to “Cinema Paradiso” by Ennio Morricone. Every note was accentuated and every toe pointed.

    She opened with a triple flip-triple toe combination and moved through the program without missing a beat. She pumped her fist after she finished skating.

    Isabeau Levito skates in the women’s free skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. She won the bronze medal.

    “She truly is a ballerina, but what I love most about Isabeau is that there is iron below; there is grit,” NBC commentator and 1998 Olympic champion Tara Lipinski said. (Lipinski, like Levito, was born in Philadelphia.)

    “I can’t wait to see that on Olympic ice,” added NBC’s other commentator, two-time Olympian Johnny Weir. (Weir is from Coatesville.)

    In the end, Levito earned 148.73 points in the free skate and 224.45 points overall. Her overall score is a new personal best.

    Competitors are not always rivals. Just ask the top American women’s figure skaters, Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn.

    “I feel like [my free skate] reflected the training I put in,” Levito said in a news conference after the competition. “It was my first time competing in an Olympic year being age eligible for the Olympics.”

    Levito also won a bronze medal at the 2022 nationals, but was 14 then and too young to qualify for the Olympics.

    Levito, Glenn, and Liu are expected to be the women’s team representing the United States in Milan — which also is Levito’s mother’s hometown and where her grandmother and other relatives still live. Levito understands and speaks Italian.

    Silver medalist Alysa Liu (left), gold medalist Amber Glenn, bronze medalist Isabeau Levito, and fourth-place finisher Bradie Tennell pose with their medals after the women’s free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis.

    The three are good friends and shared a hug after Glenn’s win.

    In the news conference, they responded to a question about the bygone era of ice princesses by discussing whether they thought they were more like 2005 movie Ice Princess or the 2007 film Blades of Glory.

    Unlike other sports, the national championships are not an Olympic qualifier. It is the last of a series of events over two years that are considered in the equation that determines the team.

    Last year, Levito finished just off the podium in fourth place at the 2025 World Championships in Boston.

    This season, she placed fourth at the Grand Prix de France, second at Skate Canada, and was the first alternate to the Grand Prix Final.

    Levito was the U.S. champion in 2023 and the world silver medalist in 2024.

    Now, the wait begins until Sunday’s announcement. But Levito can rest easily knowing she did her job.

    How to watch

    Presentation of the Olympic team

    2 p.m. Sunday on NBC10 and Peacock

  • In ‘Petrushka,’ BalletX and ensemble 132 break into a classical concert and burst out in a circus

    In ‘Petrushka,’ BalletX and ensemble 132 break into a classical concert and burst out in a circus

    BalletX and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society opened the world premiere of Amy Hall Garner’s highly colorful, theatrical Petrushka Thursday night at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater.

    Petrushka takes the second half of a program that opens with ensemble 132 alone in the first act, playing Bartok, Wiancko, and Mozart. So when Peter Weil (as Pete, who becomes Petrushka) wanders on stage and settles in for a nap, it is amusing already.

    It’s as if a Kimmel visitor walked through the wrong door.

    Now the musicians, playing the Stravinsky score — rescored for, and played by, a piano quintet, are backstage while a surreal fever dream of a scene erupts. Pete is woken up by a chorus of dancers who steal his blanket and wrap him into the traveling show that is approaching.

    It’s like we went to a classical concert and a circus broke out.

    BalletX dancers Peter Weil as Petrushka and Lanie Jackson as Belle in Amy Hall Garner’s “Petrushka.”

    Last summer, BalletX offered a preview of Petrushka, for which choreographer-in-residence Garner teamed up with theater director Nancy Meckler and set and costume designer Emma Kingsbury. Then, it was intriguing but hard to parse.

    A new ‘Petrushka’ is bringing shape-shifting human puppets to Philadelphia

    Petrushka, which Houston Public Media called “the unhappiest puppet story ever,” has been a standard in the ballet cannon since Michel Fokine choreographed the first version in 1911. It is still a known work but no longer performed frequently.

    Garner’s story is still hard to parse without reading the program notes, but it’s a wild adventure.

    BalletX dancers Ashley Simpson, Itzkan Barbosa, Minori Sakita, and Lanie Jackson (back) in Amy Hall Garner’s “Petrushka.”

    This is the first time BalletX has remade an older story, artistic director Christine Cox said on stage before the show.

    Garner’s traveling show is an amusing cast of circus characters who are sometimes puppets, other times human. A hilarious strongman (Mathias Joubert) and a magician/impresario (Jonathan Montepara) share the role as the bad guys. Montepara controls everyone with his wand. Both Pete and the magician are in love with Belle, the ballerina (Lanie Jackson).

    Jackson convinces Pete to change into a costume, thus becoming Petrushka and distracting the audience.

    At 20, BalletX is nowhere near done bringing the most exciting new ballet and choreography to Philly

    There are also acrobats and dancers who perform with ribbons, clubs, and hoops.

    BalletX dancers are used to a variety of types of dance and roles. The company specializes in new work, so they are all flexible and able to perform in many ways. More surprising was how good they are as actors. In particular, Weil and Jackson didn’t only impress with their dancing but their strong storytelling and range of emotions.

    BalletX dancers Mathis Joubert lifts Jerard Palazo in Amy Hall Garner’s “Petrushka.”

    Joubert was the strongest supporting character as the egotistical strongman, breaking the fourth wall to use it as a mirror, flexing his muscles and kissing himself.

    The large number of bodies on stage made for a lively scene, but it also overwhelmed the Perelman stage at times. Ensemble 132, which owned the first half, almost faded into the background in the second.

    It would be interesting to see this sometime at the Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts, BalletX’s second home.

  • South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito looks to vault herself onto the Olympic team at this week’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships

    South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito looks to vault herself onto the Olympic team at this week’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships

    By the end of this week — when the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships come to a close in St. Louis — South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito will know if she has done enough to score a place on the team going to the Winter Olympics next month in Milan, Italy.

    Milan is the hometown of her mother, Chiara Garberi, and where her grandmother and uncle still live. Her aunt and a cousin, who is “a very younger sister, kind of,” live about 40 minutes from Milan.

    So while the Olympics are the goal for all of the top competitors, this year’s Games are especially meaningful for Levito, 18. She vacations there often and understands and speaks Italian — although would prefer not to speak it on TV.

    “Or at least have a disclaimer,” joked Levito, who said her grammar is not by the book and she doesn’t know all the idioms. “‘She’s not from here. She knows Italian because her mommy is from here.’”

    Competitors are not always rivals. Just ask top American women’s figure skaters, Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn.

    But Italy is the thread that has been running through her entire year.

    “That was the focus,” she said.

    Both of her programs are set to Italian music. The short, which she will be skating on Wednesday, is to a compilation of sassy songs from Sophia Loren movies. She will perform the free skate, or long program, on Friday, to “Cinema Paradiso” by Ennio Morricone.

    Both pieces were suggested for her by her longtime head coach and choreographer, Yulia Kuznetsova.

    “Having had me [as a student] since childbirth, she knows me so well,” said Levito, who approves all selections before programs are created.

    Those include triple flip-triple toe loop combinations, a triple flip-double axel sequence, a three-jump combination, and her spins and step sequences, all with a lot of personality shining through.

    One of the last stops for South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito and other Olympic figure skating hopefuls: Philadelphia

    The skater lives and trains in Mount Laurel. Putting together Ikea furniture for the new apartment she shares with her very fluffy cat has been her unofficial cross-training.

    “I think I’m jacked from how much drilling I’ve done,” she said. “And I chose to live on the top floor and there’s no elevator, but there’s not too many floors.”

    She has already checked almost every box toward making it to that biggest of frozen stages in Milan. Unlike other sports, figure skating does not have an Olympic qualifying competition. Instead, an accounting of placements over two years determines who will be chosen for the Olympic and world championship teams.

    This week’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships will be the final event for skaters to make their case to be among the three women, three men, two pairs, and three ice dance teams who can compete at the Olympics. Levito, world champion Alysa Liu, and two-time U.S. champion Amber Glenn are expected to take the women’s spots.

    After fourth-place finish at worlds, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito looks forward to the Olympic season

    Despite missing most of last season because of a stress reaction in her right foot, Levito already has checked off most of the boxes. Even last year, with a training deficit, she came back to finish just off the podium in fourth place at the 2025 World Championships in Boston.

    This season, she placed fourth at the Grand Prix de France, second at Skate Canada, and was the first alternate to the Grand Prix Final.

    Seasons before this one and the last are not factored into the equation, but it cannot be ignored that Levito was the U.S. champion in 2023 and the world silver medalist in 2024.

    The Olympic team will be announced live Sunday afternoon on NBC and Peacock.

    Levito looks calm when she skates, but nerves remain a real factor.

    “I feel like this year, I’ve been very in tune with my body,” she said. I’ll just get intuition of ‘I should not listen to music on the bus [from the hotel to the competition rink] today.’ I kind of trust it. I’ve been very grounded. I’ve been realizing for myself that all the noise, it overwhelms much too much.”

    Instead, she tries to maintain the habits she has established at home.

    “When I’m at the rink and I’m practicing, I don’t really put in my earbuds and listen to music. I just do my floor warmup in silence, and then I get my skates on quickly.”

    Everyone gets nervous before big events, she said, but the bright lights of the competition arena also can give her a migraine and make her vision blurry. It helps to take ibuprofen before getting on the ice.

    “It’s OK, I’m weak,” she said, laughing. “I’m not exactly survival of the fittest.

    “Between that and everything’s very loud [in the arena], and then everyone watching you, and it’s actually competition, and the judges are right there. It’s overwhelming, overstimulating, there’s a lot going on. So I feel like it’s very important to me that I have my solitude and my silence beforehand, rather than just shoving music into my ears and trying to escape where I actually am.”

    In the end, she usually lands near or on top.

    This time the stakes are exceptionally high. But even if she doesn’t win, she just needs to show the officials one more time that her next stop should be the Olympics in Milan.

    How to watch

    Championship women’s short program

    8 p.m. Wednesday on USA Network

    8:24 p.m. on Peacock

    Championship women’s free skate

    8 p.m. Friday on NBC10

    3:57 p.m. (for the skaters who place lower in the short program) and 8:58 p.m. (for the higher-placed skaters) on Peacock.

    Presentation of the Olympic team

    2 p.m. Sunday on NBC10 and Peacock

  • The next stop for South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito and other Olympic figure skating hopefuls: Philadelphia

    The next stop for South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito and other Olympic figure skating hopefuls: Philadelphia

    As the 2024 world silver medalist and the 2023 U.S. champion, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito competes and performs across the country and the globe.

    But this weekend, Levito, 18, has an easy commute to the show she is skating in.

    American Gold Live! — Holiday Ice Spectacular will be at the Class of 1923 Ice Rink on Penn’s campus on Saturday and features 2026 Olympic hopefuls Levito, Ilia Malinin, and Alysa Liu. Brian Boitano, the 1988 Olympic champion, is hosting the show.

    Levito, Malinin, and Liu will compete at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships from Jan. 4 to 11 in St. Louis. Results there will be part of the equation to determine the Olympic team. All three are well on their way to qualifying.

    Alysa Liu, the 2025 world champion, won her first Grand Prix Final last weekend in Japan.

    This weekend’s show is a particularly good opportunity for Levito.

    “I was very happy to hear that it was in Philly when I was asked if I wanted to do the show,” said Levito, who lives and trains in Mount Laurel. “I don’t want to go to the airport.”

    But she’s also eager to get up and go.

    “I get a little antsy when I’m home for too long,” she said. “I’m used to every month or so I have a competition or something, having to travel.”

    After fourth-place finish at worlds, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito looks forward to the Olympic season

    This year she had an unexpected break as the first alternate to last weekend’s Grand Prix Final in Japan.

    “I’ve been home for, like, five weeks,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

    So she’s eager to perform. One of her numbers in the show will be this year’s short program, to a medley of music from Sophia Loren movies. (Her long program is to music from Cinema Paradiso. This season’s competitive programs are a nod to Italy, where the 2026 Winter Olympics will be in her mother’s hometown of Milan.)

    “I haven’t competed since [the] beginning of November,” Levito said, ”so it’ll be kind a way to [get it out there]. But also, I like that program.”

    She’ll also be skating a new holiday program to Jackie Evancho’s “Believe.”

    Who is Isabeau Levito, 2024 World Figure Skating silver medalist?

    Shows allow skaters to put aside the rules of competition and play up their favorite elements.

    Liu, 20, of Oakland, Calif., enjoys executing spins that are not allowed in competition, doing very fast rotations, and trying new positions.

    “We all have the same [spins] now,” Liu said, “because of the rules and how to get the levels. It’s so strange and we don’t really have as much creativity. There are so many other spins that we can do.”

    Levito said she enjoys making the most out of her illusion spin, in which a skater alternates between spinning upright and with her head down toward the ice and a leg in the air. In shows, she’ll hold it for as long as she can, which would not be allowed in a competition. But it is a crowd pleaser.

    “I remember Philly audiences being really into skating and really good,” Boitano said. “So I think it’s going to be fun. You’re going to see them unplugged and having a good time before they gear up to go to the Olympic trials” — the U.S. Figure Skating Championships — “in St. Louis and then to the Olympics in Milan.”

    Ilia Malinin won the Grand Prix Final in Japan while successfully completing all seven quadruple jumps.

    Malinin, 21, from Vienna, Va., known as the Quad God, competes in the most difficult program in skating today. He won his third Grand Prix Final in Japan last weekend while completing all seven quadruple jumps in his freestyle program.

    For shows, though, he often skates something he choreographs for himself. He also likes to explore a different side to his skating.

    “In shows, I really love to express myself more and be a little more creative and artsy with my programs,” Malinin said. “Whether that be cool, interesting choreography, or even some cool backflips or those kind of tricks.”

    As for competition, Malinin is planning to maintain his difficulty throughout the season — and then maybe raise it even further.

    He planned all seven quads last season, “but now I think I really want it to be something that I can repeat and do consistently, especially this at the Olympics. I think it would be another kind of record.”

    “A lot of behind-the-scenes [planning and training] is definitely going to be the quints [quintuple jumps, which have never been done],” he said. “I think I want to get that done after the Olympics, for sure.”

    How elite athletes balance homework, sports, and life | from 2023

    For Levito, this year’s elements are set in stone. But she’ll be back after the Olympics and hopes to step up her game as well.

    “I’m really excited for next season,” she said, “because I’m going to start finally working on things that I’ve really been wanting to work on, but I’m too scared to get injured.

    “When I was 14, I was working on quad toe [loop]. I seriously had it, like I would land it in practice. But then I got a stress reaction in my shin before the Junior Grand Prix Final, and I couldn’t do the final.

    “I already know I can do [the jump], so why can’t I do it now?”

    Isabeau Levito is highlighting her mother’s native Italy in her programs this year.

    Liu competed a triple axel and quadruple lutz when she was a young teenager. When COVID hit, she came to Newark, Del., to train, and she had the whole rink to herself.

    “I loved Delaware,” she said. “That was my first break day in my life. Before that, I skated every single day. Delaware was this utopia for me. There was no coach. I would lay on the ice and blast the music.”

    Competitors are not always rivals. Just ask Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn.

    Liu retired from skating after the 2020 Olympics and went to college. Then she realized she missed it, so she came back last year with a new love for the sport and a new attitude. (She is on leave as a student at UCLA.)

    “If [Alysa] learns a triple axel the day before the Olympics, she’ll land it in the Olympics,” Boitano said.

    Liu said she probably would put it in her program that quickly.

    “I’m not afraid of failure,” she said. “I invite failure. Skating is my parkour.”

    “American Gold Live! — Holiday Ice Spectacular” is at 1 and 6 p.m. Saturday at the Penn Class of 1923 Ice Rink, 3130 Walnut St. Tickets: $96.62-$292.31. Information: americangoldlive.com.

  • The family of dancers that has danced the Philadelphia Ballet ‘Nutcracker’ for at least a dozen years

    The family of dancers that has danced the Philadelphia Ballet ‘Nutcracker’ for at least a dozen years

    The Nutcracker is about family. It centers around a girl named Marie, her parents and little brother, and the magical things that happen after they throw a Christmas party.

    At Philadelphia Ballet, it’s more than just that.

    Four members of a dancing family make Nutcracker magic onstage together. Sisters Isabella, 21, Ava, 19, and Olivia DiEmedio, 16, are all members of the company. Isabella is in the corps de ballet, Ava an apprentice, and Olivia in Philadelphia Ballet II.

    When the company opens its annual production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker this weekend at the Academy of Music, the sisters will perform as snowflakes, flowers, parents, maids, and a variety of sweet treats.

    Olivia DiEmedio, 16, (center) rehearses “The Nutcracker” with Philadelphia Ballet.

    The sisters are still on the rise in the company, and are yet to explore most of the principal roles. But they’ve filled most of the children’s, many of the corps, and some soloist roles. In fact, there has been a DiEmedio in one scene or another of The Nutcracker for at least a dozen years.

    Even their mother is sometimes onstage alongside them.

    Charity Eagens, who grew up in East Norriton, Montgomery County, was in the company, then known as Pennsylvania Ballet, for 10 years, starting in 1996. Now she is a teacher in the School of Philadelphia Ballet and the children’s ballet stager. She is also the grandmother in some performances of The Nutcracker.

    Eagens has taught all three of her daughters throughout their training, and she continues to do so once a week, when she teaches company class.

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    In ballet class, she is their teacher. As soon as they step outside the studio, she is Mom.

    “It would be really awkward for all my friends to see me calling you Miss Charity,” Ava said to her mother on Zoom, gathering around a table at Philadelphia Ballet.

    “I would never say ‘Miss Charity,’” Olivia added. “I would just say what I needed to say and, like, just raise my hand.”

    The DiEmedio sisters grew up on Philadelphia Ballet.

    Isabella DiEmedio, 21, rehearses “The Nutcracker” with Philadelphia Ballet.

    “I took Isabella to see her first ballet [when] she was 2 years old, which is a little bit too young,” Eagens said. “But a lot of my friends were still in the company, and I took her. I thought, ‘Let me just see how long she sits.’”

    It was Sleeping Beauty, which is well over two and a half hours.

    “So it’s probably not the best one,” said Eagens. “However, she sat on the edge of her seat for the whole thing.”

    In 2007, when she was 3, Isabella started ballet classes in a local school where Eagens taught.

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    When she was 4, Isabella went to her mother and said, “I want to dance on the same stage as you, Mom,” Eagens said.

    In 2012, when Isabella was 7, the company reopened its school (after becoming the Rock School for Dance 20 years earlier, when it looked like the troupe might fold), and Eagens signed her up.

    Her sisters followed in the same pattern: local classes at 3, moving over to the School of Philadelphia Ballet for more serious training when they were 7. They tried gymnastics, too, but ballet is what stuck for all of them.

    Ava DiEmedio, 19, (second from right) rehearses “The Nutcracker” with Philadelphia Ballet.

    The Nutcracker was a staple in their lives. Ava and Olivia both danced the role of Marie. Isabella was too tall when it might’ve been her turn, putting the top child’s role out of her reach.

    These days, Isabella lives independently, sharing an apartment with another dancer in the company. Ava is considering moving out as well, but her father is encouraging her to stay put and save money. Meanwhile, she and Olivia split their time living with Eagens in Worcester, Montgomery County, and with their father in Philadelphia, which is convenient for getting to the studio and theater.

    At 16, Olivia is a junior in high school, doing her academic work online through the Brandywine Virtual Academy, which is affiliated with the Methacton School District she used to attend in person.

    “I never had to withdraw them from school,” Eagens said.

    At different stages of their burgeoning careers, the sisters continue to support one another.

    “In combined company class with the men and women, I’ll stand behind Isabella,” Ava said. “And then in the ladies class, I stand behind Olivia. Sometimes I’ll tell [Olivia] little things I noticed about her technique.”

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    Their boss has his eye on them.

    “Isabella, Olivia, Ava, and their mother Charity each bring their own artistry and dedication to Philadelphia Ballet,” said artistic director Angel Corella, “and watching them share the stage is incredibly moving.”

    The sisters are all eager to improve and get opportunities.

    “I want to be the best that I can and see how far I can take it,” Isabella said.

    Ava agreed. “I want to be able to branch out of corps roles.”

    Behind the scenes at Philadelphia Ballet’s ‘Nutcracker’

    As the youngest, Olivia knows she may have to wait her turn, although in ballet even the youngest professionals can get big roles.

    “Technically, I’m still in training,” as a second company member, she said. “So I have to always keep in mind and have a good mindset about it and keep working hard every day.”

    But, she added, “I really want to become someone who is, like, the star.”

    Philadelphia Ballet in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” Dec. 5-31, Academy of Music. $28-$282, 215-893-1999 or ensembleartsphilly.org

  • At 20, BalletX is nowhere near done bringing the most exciting new ballet and choreography to Philly

    At 20, BalletX is nowhere near done bringing the most exciting new ballet and choreography to Philly

    In 2005, Christine Cox just wanted to hire exciting choreographers to make new work on dancers who, at the time, were mostly her friends and colleagues picking up extra work in their off time from Pennsylvania Ballet.

    She had little idea that she was creating a Philadelphia institution.

    “I was a really short-term planner,” said Cox, 56, whose contemporary ballet company, BalletX, is celebrating 20 years. “I just wanted to do the next right thing.”

    She tried selling the company to everybody, she said: “people sitting in a picnic at Rittenhouse Square, someone at a library, someone I met in an elevator. I literally had postcards in my back pocket.”

    Once at a fair on Walnut Street, she had her team blow up hundreds of BalletX balloons and hand them out. “And I’d see all these balloons, and it was so much work” said Cox. “But you know, we were as a team, doing anything we could to spread the word, and we still continue.”

    BalletX dancers, João Pedro Silva and Itzkan Barbosa rehearse.

    There was no way of knowing that the troupe she started with Matthew Neenan (who later left to devote his full attention to his choreography but continues to work frequently with BalletX) would one day employe 16 dancers for an almost unheard of 52-week contract with six weeks of paid vacation time and a matching 401(k). Or that they would tour, perform frequently at the Vail Dance Festival, and have regular home seasons in Philly.

    Cox would go on to commission 150 world premieres by 80 choreographers, launching some careers and bringing well-known dance makers to Philly.

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    BalletX will be celebrating its two decades with a pair of retrospective performances over the next two weeks at the Suzanne Roberts Theater. The first week will include excerpts of works Cox commissioned in the company’s first decade. The second will include excerpts from more recent works and then finish with a short world premiere by rehearsal director Keelan Whitmore.

    BalletX dancer Eileen Kim rehearses.

    In all, the performances will mark 18 new works BalletX commissioned, each in snippets of six minutes or less.

    Until relatively recently, Cox didn’t realize the success she had built.

    It took BalletX opening its own studio on Washington Street in 2018 for her to see it.

    “When I saw the looks on people’s faces around the country, like, ‘Oh, we just opened up our own studio.’ Especially when we were in New York City. Suddenly everyone took us a little bit more seriously.

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    Choreographer, Marguerite Donlon, center, rehearses dancers for the company’s 20th anniversary retrospective.

    She is finally starting to have a longer vision and dream.

    “I am able to now say, ‘OK, I think this, this is possible.’ I always say it with hesitation, because that’s my nature, the balance between humility and confidence. It’s a fine balance. I’m also a little superstitious. I don’t want to be like, ‘We’ve got it all figured out,’ and then the next thing you know, you’re navigating out of a pandemic.”

    And yet, the COVID-19 pandemic also helped shape BalletX, which was one of the first and more successful companies to do work on camera. The company continues to feature short films in every performance and will do so for the retrospective, too.

    The first week’s performances will open the way BalletX launched: with the angel trio from Neenan’s Frequencies. The initial three dancers were Cox, Neenan, and Tara Keating, who is now the company’s associate artistic director.

    Ballet dancers rehearse for the company’s 20th anniversary retrospective.

    “It was a couple years after 9/11. The lyrics in the music, the whole piece was just unexpected to me. We ended with this beautiful trio of this really lightning, fast, energetic piece. Matt just was so bold and daring … he would take really into make really incredible choices that were not traditional. And I think that was really important in helping us define who we were.”

    The program will also include Still at Life, which introduced the now widely known choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa to American audiences. It will also include a piece by Edward Liang, the artistic director of Washington Ballet, along with work by Jodie Gates, Nicolo Fonte, and Jorma Elo.

    The second week will feature excerpts from Trey McIntyre’s Big Ones, which got BalletX featured on the cover of Dance Magazine. It also includes work by Jo Stromgren, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Dwight Rhoden, and Jennifer Archibald. It will also feature the work of former BalletX dancer Caili Quan who, after launching her career in Philly, went on to choreograph for some of the top American companies.

    At the end of the retrospective, Cox wants to launch BalletX into the future, with the world premiere of Whitmore’s work.

    “I thought it’s really important to really end the night on the second program with what we do, which is the future. You know, we’re creating work.”

    BalletX 20th anniversary retrospective. “Program A: The first decade,” Oct. 29-Nov. 2. “Program B: The second decade,” Nov. 5-9. Suzanne Roberts Theater. $65-$90, 215-225-5389 x250 or boxoffice@balletx.org