Famous Figure Skating Choreographer:
Tom Dickson is considered one of the top figure skating choreographers in the world. He has won U.S. Figure Skating's Choreographer of the Year Award multiple times.Some of his work includes the choreography for 2008 Junior World Champion Rachael Flatt. He choreographed her 2008 short program "Ain't Necessarily So." For her first year as a senior level competitor, in 2007, he also did the choreography for her long program, "An American in Paris."
Date and Place of Birth:
Tom Dickson was born on July 14, 1962 in Pasadena, California.Early Life and Family:
Tom grew up in southern California. He has two older sisters, Dianne and Linda, who also skated. His mother, Nancy, ice skated recreationally and his father, Albert, was always a figure skating fan.He began figure skating when he was about seven years old shortly after the family ice skated together for fun during a vacation in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Dickson is married to Swedish Ice Skating Champion, Catarina Lindgren. The couple has two children, a boy and a girl. The twins were born in 1997.
First Days on the Ice:
Tom's family lived in Newport Beach, so after they returned from their vacation in Sun Valley, they looked in the phone book for the nearest ice rink. That rink turned out to be the Glacier Falls Ice Arena which was near Disneyland.The children took one group lesson together, but didn't like it, so looked for a private ice skating teacher. They approached Jim Short (first thinking he was Evy Scotvold who coached U.S. Men's Champion Terry Kubicka and Olympic Silver Medalist Nancy Kerrigan) and Dianne and Tom began semi-private lessons with Jim.
Early Creativity:
Dickson showed ice skating talent and creativity right from the start. One day, when he was a little boy, he asked his coach, Jim Short, what a certain jump was. Tom did a perfect double loop jump for Jim.Training:
Jim Short was the coach that inspired Tom Dickson's love for choregoraphy and creativity on the ice. Together, they created his programs. Jim Short also gave Dickson a love and passion for compulsory figures. In 1979, Dickson, moved to Colorado Springs to train under Barbara Roles at the Broadmoor World Arena.Amateur Figure Skating Highlihgts:
In 1980, Tom Dickson won the national junior men's title. He placed third in figures, dropped to fourth after the short program, and pulled up to first after the long program. His winning program included a triple flip, triple loop, and a triple toe-loop. He went on to win the Nebelhorn Trophy in 1980.Tom's last year as an amateur figure skater was 1984. At the U.S. Nationals in 1984, in the senior men's division, he placed 3rd in figures and 5th overall.
Professional Skating Career:
During Dickson's days of training at the Broadmoor Skating Club, he met Swedish Figure Skating Champion, Catarina Lindgren. The two began experimenting with skating together. In 1984, they joined Ice Capades. The couple was married in 1987.It was during their time in Ice Capades that Dickson and Lindgren were inspired by choreographer Sarah Kawahara. They toured with Ice Capades from 1984 through 1992. They then were part of Torvill and Dean's tour from 1992 through 1995. During their show days, they performed as a couple and also did solo performances.
Tom Dickson - Coach and Choreographer:
In 1995, Tom Dickson and Catarina Lindgren returned to Colorado Springs and began coaching.Dickson had already had experience doing choreography for the world's best figure skters. For example in 1991, he'd been asked by Olympic coach, Carlo Fassi, to go to Italy and choreograph a program for Chinese figure skater, Lu Chen. Chen went on to win bronze at the 1991 World Figure Skating Championships with the program Dickson choreographed.
Shortly after settling in Colorado Springs, Dickson found skaters from all over the world coming to him for their choreography needs.
More About Tom Dickson and Catarina Lindgren:
Tom Dickson's wife, Catarina Lindgren, is also considered one of the world's best figure skating choreographers. Since she is the mother of twins, she does not like to travel. Skaters from all over the world come to work with the couple at the World Arena. In addition to designing figure skating programs, Catarina designs skating costumes.Dickson and Lindgren have choreographed programs for Ryan Jahnke, Ann Patrice McDonough, Matthew Savoie, Nana Takeda, Yukina Ota, Caroline Zhang, Andrei Lutai, Kim Yu-Na, Parker Pennington, Jeremy Abbott, Michael Villarreal, Rachael Flatt, Jane Summersett and Todd Gilles, Piper Gilles and Tim Mckernan, and Megan Williams-Stewart.
Tom has traveled the globe for figure skaters and coaches who request him. He has gone as far as Japan and Italy. He choreographed an ice show in Hong Kong.
In 2008, at the request of Olympic Coach Alexei Mishin, he went to Florida and worked with some of Mishin's top talent including Andrei Lutai, Katarina Gerboldt, and Arthur Gachinsky. Tom says it was great to stay with Mishin and his students in a beach house and enjoy being creative at the same time. Lutai took a trip to Colorado in the spring of 2008 especially to work with Dickson.
In 2007, he choreographed the programs for 2007 World Junior Champion Caroline Zhang. Zhang took a special trip to Colorado Springs to work with Dickson. Then. Dickson went to southern California to put the finishing touches on Zhang's program.
Together, Tom Dickson and Catarina Lindgren choreoraphed "Princess Classics" for Disney On Ice. One of the most creative numbers in that show is done when Mermaid Ariel performs without skates on with Prince Eric. That number was inspired from a number in Torvill and Dean's tour where Olympic figure skater Paul Duchesnay did an entire adagio-type number with Kurt Browning's wife, Sonia Rodriguez, who is a principal ballet dancer. Duchesnay and Rodriguez performed on the ice, but Rodriguez did not wear skates.
Dickson also feels honored to have given a presentation at the Professional Skaters Conference with figure skating legend, Janet Lynn. Their presentation was about how skating needs compulsory figures back. After the presentation, Dickson took elite figure skater Jeremy Abbott, to work with Janet Lynn on compulsory figures. Lynn's impressive knowledge and technique had an impact on Abbott.
Tom Dickson loves being a figure skating choreographer and is truly "an ice skating artist."
