Someone’s phone rang a little over half a minute into Angi Cipra’s floor routine. At least that’s what it sounded like.
But as the crowd at the season-opening gymnastics meet looked around to find the unfortunate source of the noise, it became clear that the unmistakable iPhone ringtone had been a part of the act. With the tone blaring over the loudspeakers of Pauley Pavilion, Cipra brought her right hand up to her ear to symbolize a phone – flaring her thumb and pinky outwards as she curled her three middle fingers into her palm.
Scanning the crowd with her eyes, the junior gymnast turned her left palm up and furrowed her brow as if to ask, “What is going on?”
A second later, the gymnast smiled in a “gotcha” way and continued with her floor routine, now with the attention of the entire crowd.
“A lot of people have iPhones. That’s like the default ringtone,” Cipra said. “So to have that go off – all the people that have that are like, ‘Wait, is it me?’ It connects people.”
Cipra’s ringtone-based performance is emblematic of the engaging routines choreographed by coach Valorie Kondos Field. The ballerina-turned-gymnastics-coach lets her gymnasts have fun and express their personality more than they do at other levels of elite gymnastics, according to freshman Katelyn Ohashi.
During the preseason choreography period, Cipra presented the music clip, which incorporates the ringtone into the pulsing electronic beat, to Kondos Field and asked if she could use it. The coach was inspired.
“When I hear music, if I can see it in my mind – regardless of whether I like the music or not – if I can see the choreography, then I feel it’s gonna be a good choice for music,” Kondos Field said. “You know some music I just can’t see, so it’s kind of pointless for me to try to choreograph to it.”
Kondos Field could picture Cipra dancing and tumbling across the floor mat, pretending to answer an invisible phone. After she designed the routine Cipra would bring to the floor, the gymnast did the rest.
“She has a wonderful enact-ability to act and tell the story, so she’s really fun to work with,” Kondos Field said. “She is an exceptional dancer. She has exceptional timing. And I can get much more creative with the little nuances with her than with a lot of other people.”
Cipra performed a similarly interactive floor routine last year, when she competed with a zombie-themed routine: she would hang her head low, pull her arms straight out front, and edge her body forward in a stiff yet energetic manner. Cipra’s teammates would approach the audience minutes before she took the floor, and instructed them to perform the zombie move with her at the cue.
“Honestly, because I love floor so much, it’s pretty simple,” Cipra said. “I wanna pull them in, I want the crowd to love my floor routine as much as I love it.”
So far, judges have enjoyed the routine as well. Although she only scored a 9.825 Monday night at California, Cipra entered that meet ranked 12th in the nation on the floor. She’ll have her next chance to impress the crowd Saturday in the Bruins’ meet against the Utah Utes at 1 p.m.