Benoît Richaud on choreographing a program for Kamila Valieva

We started discussing working together back in the winter — some friends introduced us. But for a long time it was unclear how we could organize it and how much time we would have. When I realized my schedule in Moscow would allow us to work together, I immediately contacted Kamila's team.

Before arriving in Novogorsk, I didn't know which program we would be choreographing — the short or the free. So I asked Cédric Tour in advance to prepare several music options. He helped us very quickly, and I'm very grateful to him for that.

In the end, one of the options worked, and we choreographed the short program — and I can say that this music has not been used in figure skating before. It's a very special and powerful composition, there is a lot of change of rhythm.

I don't think Kamila has skated in this style before — and it suited her incredibly well. But my idea was not to change her, but to build the program around Kamila herself and the kind of skater she is. We were looking for new ways to play with the musicality, to use body movements and the quality of edges. It's about the evolution of a skater — some things were new for her, especially in the step sequence work. But Kamila is a very talented athlete and picks up everything almost instantly.

Of course, we had very little time — the choreography took three days, but we spent many hours on the ice each day. We were doing the choreography and doing a lot of run-throughs — one of my most frequent phrases was "again!" Kamila even laughed and said she couldn't remember ever doing so many repetitions or spending so much time on the ice. So it was a real intensive.