Born in Cold War Russia in 1968, Mikhail Panin donned his first pair of ice skates at the behest of his father at the age of five. He began with the basics of forward and backward motion while learning the fundamentals of an exceedingly popular game in the Soviet Union at the time, ice hockey. It was his mother's insistence that he learned to skate figures, however, which led to his enrollment in a KGB-sponsored sports training school, Dinamo Sports Club, his first jump at the age of six, and a lifetime on the ice.

He would wake at 5:00am, take a bus and then a train, finally arriving at Dinamo in time for morning training sessions starting at 7:00am. For the next five hours he and his sports school classmates received instruction and coaching in everything from ballet - they did not learn position but rather they focused on balance, stretching and form - to jumping rope and weight lifting as well as spending extensive time physically on the ice. From noon to 6:00pm they attended regular academic sessions; however, by 7:00pm they were once again on the ice or elsewhere within the sports complex training. His day at Dinamo would end at 10:00pm From there it was two hours by train and bus back home only to get up at 5:00am and do it all over again the next day.

When asked what was the most difficult part of his training, Panin responds immediately, "Getting up at 5:00. I am not a morning person." It is only in passing conversation that he mentions breaking his leg in an early attempt at doing jumps, the long hours of training on the ice, and weekends away at training camps.

In 1982 and 1984, he placed third in the Soviet Union in national competition. As one of thousands participating in this highly political and competitive sport, he was not amongst those chosen to represent his country in the Winter Olympics that year. However, Panin had proven himself worthy of admission to the University of Moscow where he eventually earned a Masters in Physical Education and Teaching. His skating life continuing to follow a schedule of attending classes two or three days a week with up to seven months of every year spent in training camps.

It was also while at the university that he first skated with Irina Grigorian. He had known her for many years - how could he have missed the girl who was two feet taller than al the boys when she first came to Dinamo in 1977 - but had never skated a routine with her. They had the same coach, but they trained as solo skaters. Grigorian at 5'10 always being considered too tall for a pair routine.

Joining the "Kiev Ballet on Ice" in 1988, however, the two skated together for the time time. Panin at 5'11 certainly was not the most likely candidate to lift Grigorian high above his head or swing her about in circles in adagio-type routines; however, his body rippling with muscles and having known her since childhood, they soon became an unstoppable team.

While with the Kiev Ballet on Ice they met the producer of an ice show in Barcelona and their international career on ice began. Their travels took them from Europe around the world performing in productions ranging from dinner theater-style shows to "Holiday on Ice." Panin learned to ride a unicycle on ice and juggles in skates. He performed this show act in many a production, skated solo as well as took to the ice with Grigorian in roles such as Cinderella's Prince Charming and Carmen's Don Jose. In 1998, he took the Bronze Medal in the American Open Figure Skating Pro Championships held in Geneva, Illinois for his show act on ice while he and Grigorian place fourth in pairs competition.

In the same year, they met up with Victoria Bilyeu, a soloist performing in a show with them in Laughlin, Nevada. When they asked to join the cast of Splash in early 1999, they asked her to come with them.

Today, in Splash, working within the confined of a 35'x15' custom-designed ice rink, Panin performs a breathtaking ice ballet with Bilyeu - an enchanting ice dance of spirals and spins - as well as an acrobatic adagio routine that is leaving audiences sitting on the edge of their seats.

With Grigorian he takes Splash audiences on a most-unexpected journey to Spain and the opera, with a performance of the death scene from George Bizet's Carmen. Performing sit spins and pull butterfly jumps, lifts and spirals, the power of their exotic romance - and raw talent - unfolds.

Finally, performing his medal-winning show act routine, Panin, in skates, hops on a unicycle and rides across the slippery surface of the iced stage. He juggles batons on fire and performs amazing skating feats of strength and speed.

Irina Girgorian

Irina Girgorian

Her older sister was an ice dancer; therefore, as younger siblings often do, she too took to the ice as soon as she was able to get on a pair of skates. "I loved it from the start," Grigorian says of her first moments on the ice in Moscow at the age of five.

Typical of education and training programs in the Soviet Union at the time, soon thereafter Grigorian joined an ice skating competition club sponsored by the Red Army. She would spend fourteen hours a day at school; six hours in regular academic sessions and eight hours in physical training. She took ballet, studied the classics and had to pass a skating test every six month.

Her favorable area of study was music; however, she made far more of an impression on the track. "I did not like it at all," she says of her time running everything from the 200m on down to the 50m, "but I was very competitive."

At the age of 11, she changed skating coaches, moving to the KGB-sponsored sports training school, Dinamo Sports Club, and by the time she was 16 years old Grigorian ranked fifth in all of the Soviet Union. However, upon completing high school, she quit the skating competition circuit.

"I wanted to skate," Grigorian explains of the highly political and competitive, as well as height standard - she was good two feet taller than all the boys throughout school and would grow to be 5'10 - obstacles between her and the ice as an amateur. "So I turned pro at 17."

For the next three years she skated with the "Russian All Stars," while working toward a Masters in Physical Education and Teaching at the University of Moscow. It was not until 1988, however, when took a position with the Kiev Ballet on Ice," that she would skate a pairs routine for the first time with the man who would become her career skating partner, Mikhail Panin.

Grigorian skated solo as well as taking to the ice with Panin in productions ranging from Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland to Carmen.

Along the way Grigorian learned to hula hoop and after months and months of practice mastered moving from one to two to four to eight hula-hoops, all kept in perpetual motion ringing about her sensuous frame while on the ice. "It was so easy on the floor," she recalls. "But when I tried it in skates I had to learn how to hula all over again . . . the skates slipping and sliding constantly underneath me.

Beyond bringing a lifetime of skating experience and excellence to the stage, Grigorian is also responsible for the overall look of all the ice skating numbers. She designed and hand made all of their costumes. Furthermore, as the team's choreographer, she put together the music and the moves for everything from Panin and Victoria Bilyeu's breathtaking ice ballet and unforgettable acrobatic-adagio routine to her fancy footwork in the opening of Carmen.

Mikhail Panin & Victoria Bilyeu

Victoria Bilyeu

When Victoria Bilyeu, nee Guarrasi, was seven years old an ice skating rink was installed at the local mall in her native San Diego, California. "I saw the ice and I went," she explains of her first time on skates. "I have no idea how or why, but I took to it instantly," she continues. "My mother literally had to pull me off the ice." She was a natural.

Bilyeu's raw talent immediately recognizable, coaches at the mall's rink soon had her attending early morning training sessions. She would hit the ice at 4:30am getting in four hours of practice before heading off to school. A young prodigy, Bilyeu did her first triple flip jump at the age of ten - long before her peers - and soon was taking first place in multitudes of competitions across the Western United States.

Her life, however, took a severe turn just as she was preparing to enter junior high school and the realm of national skating competition. As is true for many young American athletes, the money to support Bilyeu's endeavors ran out bringing her days on the ice to an abrupt end. It would be nearly fifteen years before she got on the ice again.

An accomplished jazz dancer and personal fitness/health trainer, Bilyeu spent her time away from the ice working as everything from a mini club director at Club Med in the Bahamas to a softball coach in Italy. She attained several professional certifications in the field of exercise/physical science as well as became a master of Reiki.

In late 1996, she found herself working as a clinical trials research assistant in La Jolla, California, where she was coordinating and facilitating pharmaceutical research studies for the Federal Drug Administration. About the time she became a published scientist - see "Treatment of Primary Sjogrens Syndrome with Hydroxychloroquine" In Lupus Journal, volume 5, 1996; however, she decided that no matter how much it hurt she had to get back on the ice.

"There was less and less healing and more and more stress going on in my life," Bilyeu explains. She needed to do something for herself and skating was the answer. "I wanted to fly."

Her goal was to do a triple again. She was going to skate for fun, for the joy of it, to find some harmony in her life. Little did she know that within two years she would be skating for a living much less skating in a production show.

In 1998, Bilyeu moved to Las Vegas to take on the position of Program Coordinator with Youth Health Specialists. A regular at the rink - she would wake early to get in a few hours of skating before heading off to work - when Bill Moore Productions and On Stage Entertainment came around looking for skaters for an upcoming ice show, her fellow skaters encouraged her to audition. Next thing Bilyeu knew she was heading off to Laughlin to be a principal skater in "Spice on Ice" featuring the Russian skating duo of Mikhail Panin and Irina Grigorian.

In early 1999, Panin and Grigorian approached Bilyeu about skating a routine with Panin in Splash. Panin and Grigorian had been hired by Splash but were in need of a smaller girl to skate the opening pairs routines with Panin.

"I never ever even considered pairs," the purely-solo-skater-since-childhood Bilyeu exclaims. However, they insisted that they had seen Bilyeu skate and believed she was perfect for the part.

In June of that year Bilyeu began training under the guidance of Panin's steady hand and Grigorian's watchful eye. They would skate for four to five hours a day; building strength and stamina, practicing lifts and spins, choosing music, working out choreography, coming up with combinations unlike any that have ever been done before. They would mark off a patch of ice with bright orange traffic cones and rehearse their routines in preparation for their debut six months later.

"I looked like a fruit bat," Bilyeu explains of her appearance after their first days on the ice. Preparing to perform within the confined of Splash's 35' x 15' custom-designed ice rink, their routines involved a great deal of spinning. She had never spun like that beforere and the centrifugal force was causing all the blood vessels in her face, especially around her eyes, to burst.

It was a whole new world of skating. One of her ribs broke the first time Panin lifted her high above his head and she was constantly fighting the urge to get sick from all the spinning. She essentially had to learn how to skate all over again seeing as she had trained skating clockwise her entire life and now the pairs routines demanded that she be able to skate her figures counterclockwise. A quick study and a truly talented skater, within six months, however, she was ready.

"The split spin is my favorite," say Bilyeu of the multitude of moves in the routine. Panin holding her by one leg and one hand, as they spin round and round Bilyeu stretches into a full split. Her body resembling a squished capital "I" with her arms and legs fully extended parallel to each other. "She is very flexible which is great for an adagio girl," Grigorian explains as to why they included this and several other similar original moves in the routine.

The above information provided beginning of year 2000.

On Tuesday, June 13, 2000, international ice skating champion Cindy Landry-Davis officially joined Splash taking the place of Victoria Bilyeu who has been laid up indefinitely by skating related injuries.

Born in Montreal, Canada, in February of 1972, Davis first donned a pair of skates at the age of three and began skating solo competitively at seven. She entered her first pairs competition in 1984. Three partners and over a decade later, Davis' long list of pairs competition awards include:

Probably best known in Las Vegas for skating and starring in Enter the Night at the Stardust with partner Burt Lancon for seven and a half years, Davis joined Splash cast as a swing dancer in early 2000. In February of 1998, she had married Chad Davis, who at that time, was a dancer with Enter the Night. When Enter the Night closed in late 1999, he joined the Splash cast.

Despite the fact that she is no longer dancing with her husband in Splash, Davis still has the opportunity to be on stage with him through the addition of a solo skating number to her on-ice performance. Her solo routine begins with Chad sitting on a chair center ice. As Peggy Lee's original Fever fills the room, she flirts with him and the 35'x15' custom-designed ice rink.

On September 30, 2002, 1998 American Open Figure Skating Pro Championship Bronze Medalist Mikhail Panin returned to Splash with a new partner - international skating champion Margarita Barber.

Born Margarita Ismodenova, Barber began figure skating at the age of five in her native Yekateringburg, USSR, on the border of the European and Asian continents. By the time she was 13, she had become a competitive pair skater and not long after began representing the Junior Russian National Team in many national and international competitions.

In 1994, Barber decided that she "much more enjoyed skating than being stressed out over competition" and made her professional debut with the Moscow Ballet on Ice as the principal pair/adagio skater. For several years she toured various countries throughout Europe as well as Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Florida with this company. After a successful tenure there, she was invited by Feld Entertainment to perform in their Disney on Ice production of Toy Story as the understudy to the principal pair team. For three years, Barber performed throughout the United States as well as Mexico and Japan. It was with this production that she met Christopher Barber, a sound engineer on the tour.

In 1999, the couple left the Disney show to get married and settled in Tampa, Florida, where she coached at various ice facilities but soon felt a need to be back on the ice as a performer. Therefore, in 2000, Barber joined the Ice Capades 75th Anniversary Tour as a member of the principal adagio team; her husband working as a stage manager. Upon the conclusion of their Ice Capades tour, the Barbers decided to relocate to Vegas to further their careers in the entertainment industry.