Figure skating

Basically, I want to blaber on about how much I love figure skating, why, and put some links.

I’ll start with the “why”: Dancing (for me) is a way to express emotions and ideas that exist in music. It is a way for a dancer to express their passion, their character, their joy of life.

In case of ice-skating, there are additional elements that make it more powerful: speed, height, fluency, effortless movement.

The blades, cold and hard, are used to perform soft, round movements, and remind you of the strength and speciality needed to use them, emphasizing the strength of the skater.

Here is a video of world champions in figure skating (and justly so). They are skating to Tchaikovsky. Both of them are beautiful physically, they dance beautifully, they are dressed beautifully, and they give a perfect performance:

Now, maybe the video online does not do their throws justice, because when you see it on TV it is just amazing: it seems like she is actually flying.

Another great skater is Eevgeny Plushenko (think he is also world champion): he skates very confidently, easily, in a relaxed manner. He skates like he knows he’s the champ. Here is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmLj3_WaKe0. He has one performance that is better than the rest but I couldn’t find it.

And he also has some sense of humour…

(of the Crazy kind :worry: ).

Here is Michelle Kwan skating to “Fields of gold”.

Everything in this dance of hers says “me me and me”. She seems focused on her inner emotional experience of the music, and proudly presenting her self to the world. I love it. It’s very exciting.

I love the parts of long of effortless skating in a position that shows how she gives in to emotion.

Just beautiful.

I just saw this performance of Sasha Cohen performing to Swan Lake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2s-lm0mhbM

This is by far the best performance she has have ever given. Absolutely stunning!