Above: Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko perform their "Carmen" free dance at Cup of China. Photo credit: Robin Ritos
By Lynn Rutherford
The captivating notes of Bizet’s Carmen — especially the first act’s “Habanera,” the title character’s sultry entrance aria — are instantly recognizable to figure skating fans, often evoking memories of past champions.
So when Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko take the ice for their free dance at the 2025 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas, Saturday afternoon, they’ve set the bar high: to put their own indelible stamp on the classic.
“It has been a growing process,” Carreira says. “And for the second half of this season, we definitely want to come out with “Carmen 2.0,” with a new energy and more of an attack in the program.”
“We have a lot more to give this free dance than what we’ve been putting out so far,” Ponomarenko says.
What they’ve put out so far has been darn good. The ice dancers, who teamed up as young teenagers in 2014, are having by far their best season ever, medaling at each of their four events including a bronze at Cup of China and silver behind Madison Chock and Evan Bates at Japan’s NHK Trophy.
“We had a good off-season where we got to prepare well,” Carreira says. “We showed up to Champ’s Camp (in August) well trained with two good programs, and we took the feedback there. And then after every competition, we got feedback from judges and our officials and made changes accordingly. And it's been paying off.”
The skaters assign much of the credit to their primary coaches, Scott Moir and Madison Hubbell, who train them at I.AM Dance Academy’s London, Ontario branch.
“Now that we’re in our fourth season with our coaches, they understand what we need to do, to be excellently prepared,” Ponomarenko says. “We knew our Grand Prix (events) back, I think, in August, and the challenges around the same time. Our entire schedule was made months in advance, and we just had to commit to it and train every day to the plan.”
“It’s a team effort, but we trust that our coaches know what’s best for us more than we do,” Carreira says. “They've been good at planning out our season. … Of course, they ask for our input, but we trust their opinion a lot.”
With two Grand Prix medals, Carreira and Ponomarenko just missed qualifying for their first Grand Prix Final. Instead, they were named as first alternates for the prestigious event.
“We can’t say we’re disappointed, because we’re happy with how we skated, and the results are ultimately out of our control,” Carreira says. “But I think it gave us motivation for the second half of the season. We want to attack, and we want to prove that we’re part of the top group.”
“Even being in the conversation as a team that could potentially make the Final is a big confidence boost,” Ponomarenko says. “So even if we didn't make it, we were the closest we have been in our senior career. And we’re only looking upward from here.”
Which brings us to “Carmen 2.0” – an even more aggressive, passionate rendition of the program than they’ve shown thus far this season. When the skaters returned to London after Cup of China, they worked with Moir and Hubbell to give the free dance what they call “a really refreshed look.”
“I think the way we’ve skated at home has been a bit freer and a bit more intense, and competition has been getting closer and closer to that,” Carreira says.
“We came back to London with a large chunk of time after Cup of China (in early November) to smooth things over and fix the transitions,” Ponomarenko says. “But one of the biggest refreshers was our costumes.”
The skaters worked with Mathieu Caron — costumer for Chock and Bates, and many other I.AM. dance teams — to create “more traditional” attire than Carreira’s yellow and gold dress, and Ponomarenko’s fitted, light-brown shirt, worn thus far this season.
“I feel like with our first (costumes), we wanted to show kind of that this (free dance) was different, that this was our own Carmen,” Carreira says. “But we both had little issues with the costumes. We wanted a new look that would bring more of a classical approach.”
They spent several days in Montreal in early January to have the costumes fitted, and to show their programs — including their well-received rhythm dance set to gritty 1950’s hits by Little Richard and Etta James — to I. AM founders and head coaches, Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer.
Ponomarenko thinks the extra time and expense will be well worth it when “Carmen 2.0,” including the new designs, are unveiled in Wichita.
“Even when we were just trying them on, doing the fittings, there was that level of excitement that we hadn’t felt since the summer about this free dance,” he says. “The choreography changes, and the costumes, are definitely taking us to the next level.”
