Naomi Lang (b. 1978), Ice Dancer
* Five-time US National Ice Dance Champion
* Two-time Four Continents champion
* Olympian
When Karuk tribal member Naomi Lang, at age six, first performed as a bonbon in The Nutcracker it was only a glimpse of the heights to which she would eventually reach.
Born in Arcata, California to Jason Lang (Karuk) and Leslie Dixon (French/English/Irish heritage), Naomi began her ballet training in California at age three at the Redwood Concert Ballet.
But Lang's interests took a turn when her maternal grandmother became ill and Naomi and her mother moved to Allegan, Michigan to be near her. There, at age eight, the future champion became enamored of ice dancing after she watched a television presentation of Ice Capades. Her first ice skating lesson was in Kalamazoo.
Naomi and John Lee, her first ice dancing partner, won their first competition at the novice ice skating level. They competed at the junior level where their highest achievement was second place. She was Novice Ice Dance National Champion (1995) and Junior National Ice Dance silver medalist in 1996. Naomi won gold medals in Ice Dance and Freedance, and silver medals in Freestyle and Moves in the Field.
Lang and Lee split at age eighteen and Lang's next partner was Russian-born dancer, Peter Tchernyshev. The pair became renowned for their on-ice romantic performances. Lang and Tchernyshev trained with well-known ice dancing and skating coaches Igor Shpilband, Elizabeth Coates, Alexander Zhulin, Nikolai Morozov, Natalia Dubova, and Tatiana Tarosova.
After turning professional, Naomi Lang performed with skating shows and tours that included Champions on Ice and Art on Ice television shows. Naomi was part of the Pandora NBC Skating Series and traveled extensively over Europe with Evgeny Plushenko's Stradivarius Violin Tour. She is a five-time U.S. National Ice Dance champion, a two-time Four Continents Champion, received the bronze medal at the Skate America championships (2000) and competed at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev retired from competitive skating after a 2004 re-injury of Lang's Achilles tendon; however they continued to perform as a pair in shows including Art on Ice, Kings on Ice, and the Katarina Witt Farewell Tour.
In 2008, Lang, her husband, American ice dancer Mark Fitzgerald and their four children, moved to Gilbert, Arizona, where there were no ice dance coaches or students!
"I had to start from the beginning," she stated. But undeterred, Lang began coaching students in the areas of her expertise: ice dance, choreography, polishing programs, stroking techniques, and freestyle.
Currently grooming the next generation of champions, Naomi Lang is an instructor in the Polar Ice Gilbert figure skating program. A number of her students have competed at the junior national, national and international levels.
Sources:
Harjo, John, Canku Ota, The Naomi Lang Story, January 26, 2002
IceDance.com
Polar Ice Gilbert official website, Naomi Lang, Instructor
Wikipedia
KB Schaller is a journalist, researcher, novelist and illustrator. A version of this article appears in her biographical collection 100+ Native American Women Who Changed the World, winner of an International Book Award, Women's Issues Category. Other KB Schaller books are available through Amazon.com and other booksellers. Email: soaring-eagles@msn.com
