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Ice Show's a Cool Diversion at Carousel
 | | Gary Gately | | Cara Morrissey, the lead ice dancer in The Next Ice Age show at the Carousel, joined the Baltimore-based ice-dancing company at age 8. |
They float across the ice like ballroom dancers. They pirouette like ballerinas. They soar like seagulls, beneath fluttering cloth wings. They jump and twist and turn like gymnasts.
It’s blistering hot outside on the beach. But come 6:30 p.m., the ice rink’s the place to be at the Carousel Resort Hotel & Condominiums in Ocean City.
The indoor rink features free shows by the acclaimed ice dance company The Next Ice Age every evening until Sept. 5. And the shows have proved a huge hit as scores of spectators line the 50-by-80-foot rink and balconies – or sit at rinkside tables for dinner – in the Carousel’s soaring atrium.
In the beach-themed show, six costumed dancers perform to music ranging from Seals and Croft’s “Summer Breeze” and the Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” to Percy Faith’s “Theme from 'A Summer Place” and Neil Diamond’s “Jonathan Livingston Seagull" soundtrack.
 | | Gary Gately | | Ice dancers skate beneath cloth representing wings of a seagull. |
Early-evening sunlight floods the atrium, so the company performs without theatrical lighting here. Dancers make the most of the space with dazzling performances of mini-skits that rely on props like a little TV, a picnic table and baskets, beach balls and cloth wings three of the dancers hold while zipping across the ice.
Choreographer Tim Murphy, co-founder of the 15-year-old, non-profit Next Ice Age, says the college-age dancers’ performance dispels popular misconceptions about skating shows.
"Skating has a certain reputation where a lot of people think it’s kind of silly,” Murphy says. “They’re used to seeing the ‘Smurfs’ on ice and other cartoon characters on ice who sort of walk around the ice with costumes on and don’t skate. And it’s mostly children’s fare.
“I like to think of this show as family fare; we’re looking at skating as a dance form as opposed to either a spectacle or simply an athletic event,” says Murphy, who is also coach and choreographer for Dorothy Hamill, the Olympic gold medalist who still tours and performs.
The show at the Carousel is mostly light-hearted, but Murphy doesn’t dumb it down for the beach audience. In one skit, a dancer stares into the screen of a TV other dancers hold, seemingly entranced. Then one of the dancers hurls the TV into a garbage can. The message is clear. In Murphy’s words, “Television is like the great American narcotic.”
The show certainly wows the Carousel audience: Applause erupts more than 40 times during the 30-minute show among about 150 spectators.
The dancers make it look easy, as any performers should. But putting the show together – and keeping it sharp – are no small tasks. For two weeks, the dancers rehearse for six to eight hours a day, and during the show’s summer run, they rehearse for a few hours every morning.
The dancers, who live during the summer in condos paid for by the Carousel, range from 17 to 21 years old.
But they’re all veterans of the ice who began competitive skating as children, and some of them have skated in national and international competitions as far away as California and France.
 | | Gary Gately | | Skaters wow spectators at the Carousel Resort Hotel & Condominiums. |
And the Next Ice Age has performed in venues like the Kennedy Center in Washington and the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C., and has drawn praise from publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Sports Illustrated.
For lead ice dancer Cara Morrissey, a 21-year-old from Towson, skating seems to run in the family. Her mother, two of her aunts and her grandmother all have been figure skaters. Now her mother is director the Chesapeake Skating School; her two aunts, skating coaches; her grandmother, a skating competition judge.
Morrissey, a student at Loyola College who hopes to attend law school and become a sports agent, did her first show with the Next Ice Age when she was 8 years old. Accustomed to performing in spotlights before audiences she can’t see, the Carousel’s bright, airy atrium makes for a refreshing contrast.
“This one’s a much more intimate environment where you can see people and you can see their reactions,” she says. “You feel like you're having an effect on them. It’s really true that the more they applaud, the better we are.”
 | | Gary Gately | | An ice dancer glides across the rink during the show. |
Amanda Buckler, a 20-year-old skater from Columbia, says she prefers the Next Ice Age show over skating competitions.
“It’s different from a purely athletic competition,” she says. “There’s a lot of focus on the artistic part of it – the actually good skating instead of jumping and landing and things.”
Michael James, who has led the Carousel’s dramatic comeback, says he came up with the idea for nightly summer ice shows three years ago after a visit to Disney World, where Epcot and the Magic Kingdom offered live entertainment every night.
James say the Next Ice Age show fits in perfectly with the Carousel’s focus on being a family resort. Now, parents and their kids can watch the show, then take skating lessons on the Carousel rink, where Hamill was working on her moves on a recent afternoon.
 | | Gary Gately | | Skaters with The Next Ice Age wrap up with a grand finish. |
And in a resort where performing art typically means high-decibel bands at clubs or musicians playing along the Boardwalk, the ice show stands out, James says.
The Carousel, he says, may add monthly ice shows in the off-season. (It has offered shows around Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas performed by local skaters not affiliated with the Next Ice Age.)
“The entertainment aspect of the Next Ice Age show has just been huge, offering world-class entertainment every night,” James says. “Nobody else in Ocean City has that.”
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