Holiday On Ice - History

History

Holiday on Ice originated in the United States in 1943. It was the brainchild of Emery Gilbert, of Toledo, Ohio, an engineer and builder who created a portable ice rink. He took his idea of a traveling show to Morris Chalfen, a Minneapolis executive, who supplied the financing, and George Tyson, who used his theatrical background to create the show.

After several changes of ownership, today it primarily tours simultaneously with three to four different productions in Europe and Latin America.

Holiday on Ice was established as a family-oriented show by its founders but has retained little of the traditional ice revue format. The actual shows focus more on a theatrical/musical aspect rather than on the glamorous revue style with clouds of feathers and millions of sequins and rhinestones to attract a new, a younger audience. The once large "Corps de Ballet" of skaters has been reduced from 24 girls + 12 boys to 20 girls + 10 boys (between 1999 and 2008), and 14 girls + 10 boys (from 2009) and elaborate costuming has been replaced in favour of small modern stylings. Also the music choice from mainly Broadway show scores has been changed and adapted to the contemporary taste of actual pop music and even rock. Novelty acts such as acrobats have been added regularly to the main production numbers in recent years.

A traditional element in each Holiday on Ice show is the precision number with its famous spinning wheel, in which the skaters link arms with each other, one by one, lengthening the two spokes which spin around a center point. For many years, the traditional kickline, the light finale with illuminated costumes and the firework fountains at the end of a show were much expected elements as well.

Since 1988 each show has been given an official name to expose its unique identity resulting from its main production theme that weaves the various numbers into a unitary presentation. Beginning in 2005, Holiday on Ice has added several family-oriented touring shows to their schedule, including Peter Pan, Bugs Bunny on Ice and Ali Baba in "1001 Nights on Ice" in their new branch Kids Ice shows ("KISS").

In contrast to the North American skating tours Stars on Ice and Champions on Ice which feature primarily World and Olympic champion figure skaters, most of the skaters who tour with Holiday on Ice are not particularly famous, and the focus is on the overall production quality rather than the skaters' competitive credentials.

In 2011, Stage Entertainment announced the foundation of another subsidiary company which combines all its touring live productions, one of which is Holiday on Ice. This new division, Stage Entertainment Touring productions, is chaired by Caspar Gerwe.

For the first time in its 69 years, Holiday on Ice does not stage a new show production under its own brand in 2012.

Robin Cousins, MBE has choreographed several of Holiday on Ice's recent shows. Former choreographers have included: Stephanie Andros, Willi Bietak, Marie Carr, Kevin J. Cottam, Francis Demarteau, Sarah Kawahara, Karen Kresge, Jerôme Savary, Ted Shuffle, Anthony Van Laast, MBE, Frank Wentink and Bart Doerfler.