Three Penn students performed at the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society’s 175th Anniversary Fundraising Gala and Exhibition on Oct. 26.
PSCHS, located in Ardmore, Pa., hosted the gala as part of a larger fundraising effort to repair and upgrade the club’s facilities. It was hosted by Olympic medalist and four-time World Championship winner Scott Hamilton and featured performances from 15 skaters.
College first years Amy Lee and Blake Gilman, along with College senior and co-president of Penn Figure Skating Nick Bausenwein, performed alongside national champions, international competitors, and world medalists.
Bausenwein joined PFS in his first year and has competed throughout his four years at Penn. As a figure skater with both competitive and professional experience, Bausenwein performed a short competitive program from 2022.
“[PSCHS] is the oldest skating club in America,” Bausenwein said. “It’s got so much history to it. They’ve had Olympic champions come out of that rink, so I’m really happy to be able to help them raise funds.”
Lee — who is from Philadelphia — said that PSCHS is her home rink as she has skated there for “over a decade.” She spent over a month preparing to perform a choreographed piece to “Supernatural” by Ariana Grande.
“In the past, I haven't skated to a lot of songs with words in it,” Lee said. “Usually it was just instrumental or classical music, because competitions were more official. So that's a really exciting change.”
Gilman, similar to Lee, is also from Philadelphia and has skated at the Philadelphia Skating Club his whole life. He has continued his involvement in figure skating at Penn through PFS. He performed an ice dance — a routine typically performed by a male and female skater — with his competition partner. Since the gala coincides with the competition season, Gilman said that they wanted to showcase one of Penn Skating’s competition programs at the event.
Gilman added that PFS has been a positive support for the skating community at Penn.
“I know [PFS] has brought in a lot of new members, and I think they're doing a great job helping out with my club with the gala," he said. "They’re bringing a lot of skaters to perform, so I think that's very good.”
When asked about challenges in preparing for the gala, Bausenwein emphasized difficulties with balancing performing in the gala alongside his competition program.
“We have a limited amount of time we can skate, both as human beings who are going to college and then the Penn ice rink doesn't have that much freestyle ice, which is the ice that figure skaters can skate on, “ Bausenwein said.
Lee echoed similar challenges, explaining that PFS members only get one free session on the ice per week, with other sessions requiring payments upwards of $8.
“I’ve gone home during the weekdays, just so that I could skate on a normal session for cheaper,” Lee said. “I’ve been cramming that practice time.”
Despite these challenges, however, Lee said that she is “excited” to be performing at the gala.
“I’m really happy that I get to skate for me,” Lee said.
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