Ski ballet like it’s 1989
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SALIDA, Colo. — As a weak spring sun emerged through Monarch Mountain’s low clouds, so did a pirouetting dinosaur on skis, spinning away from two pursuing law enforcement professionals skiing in reverse.
This is not quite what professional ballet skier, Lara Rosenbaum, remembered of the now nearly extinct sport of ski ballet — known also as “acroski” — when she last participated 25 years ago.
Yet from her view at the judges table scoring competitors at Monarch Mountain and KHEN Community Radio’s first annual “Ski Ballet on Freeway” competition, Rosenbaum relived the grace, the glamor and the occasional goofiness of ski ballet.
“The great thing about ballet skiing is that you can be expressive and just be yourself,” said Rosenbaum.
“It [is] very dynamic, and everyone’s so athletic and graceful. I just love it.”
Video: Chase McCleary, Rocky Mountain PBS
Monarch Mountain and Salida’s nonprofit KHEN Community Radio celebrated the end of the independent ski hill’s 85th season by hosting a ski ballet competition and fundraiser, a first-ever for the mountain that raised sponsorship funds to support KHEN and Monarch’s nonprofit arm, Monarch Community Outreach, which supports a number of Chaffee County organizations.
KHEN’s executive director, Lisa Ledwith, said the nonprofit’s original aim was to provide a fun, community-oriented event with a retro theme to celebrate Monarch’s 85 years.
“I remember watching old Warren Miller movies, and they used to have ski ballet stuff in there, and it always just seemed like a crazy thing,” said Ledwith.
“And honestly, when we first planned this event, we did not expect to get so many people who were passionate about traditional ski ballet.”
Ski ballet dates back to the 1960s and 1970s as “a jazzy revolt against conformity and the rigid norms of competitive skiing,” according to Olymipcs.com.
Athletes had 90 seconds to perform, which usually meant completing around six different tricks, according to Rosenbaum.
“I did three flips and three jumps, or axels,” said Rosenbaum. She said that every trick needed to be different, so she could only pull out her favorite move, a 720, once per routine.
Judges measured technical difficulty, execution and creativity, similar to contemporary comparable sports, such as figure skating.
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), the international skiing and snowboarding governing body, officially recognized ski ballet in 1979, and nine years later international icons like Germany’s Hermann Reitberger competed for the first ski ballet demonstration medals at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.
Demonstration sports are not official Olympic events. Host nations often include a few favorite sports they may want to showcase for potential official inclusion in future Olympics. For example, the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris included Muaythai as a demonstration sport.
Ski ballet appeared in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics and the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics. It did not make it to Lillehammer in 1994, and many athletes, including Rosenbaum, said the sport’s failed push to become an official Olympic event, matched with increasing regulations and declining popularity, diminished professional ski ballet.
Rosenbaum was still a teenager in the early 1990s, but she was already an accomplished combine skier on the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team.
In 1990, she focused solely on ski ballet and qualified for the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville. She was passed over for Sharon Petzold and Ellen Breen, who finished third and sixth, respectively.
Rosenbaum qualified again in 1994, but the event was pulled from the Games, so Rosenbuam never got her chance to compete at an Olympics.
She finished her professional ski ballet career at the 2000 U.S. Freestyle Ski Championships, where she won gold.
Twenty-five years later, she stood about halfway up Monarch Mountain’s “Freeway,” a wide stretching slope that feeds skiers back to the base of the mountain. Once more, she performed her award-winning routine, before retiring to a judge’s table to critique competitors on scales of difficulty, execution and “vibe.”
Today, Rosenbaum continues to promote the lost sport of ski ballet, and still trains interested ballet skiers. She stressed that the sport is not as hard as it looks, and that the ski ballet community is always looking to support the next generation.
“Standing at the top [of the mountain] with this group of enthusiasts who showed up today to do this… that was so special,” said Rosenbaum.
“It means so much to me that people love ballet skiing.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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