Artistry or Athletics? Why Figure Skating Leaves Me Cold

Ice skating used to be my favorite part of the Winter Olympics. But during these 2006 games, I’ve broken with my childhood fascination. I now find ice skating to be tedious. This, I suspect, is the effect of having watched dance so closely for the last few years.Skating looks heavy and clunky compared to ballet. But there’s more to it than that. Dance is intimately tied to music. Choreographers come up with the dance by listening to music and creating movement to express it. With skating routines, it seems you could replace the music with just about anything of the same duration, and it would still be just fine. Maybe the International Olympic Committee could make it more interesting by inviting Merce Cunningham to get involved? Let’s have music and skating paired by the roll of the dice.More important, practitioners of ballet and modern dance are expressing an idea, and that idea can be based on anything from a feeling in the music to a narrative to the choreographer’s angst to the ancient art of knotmaking. (I’m not kidding about that last one. I sat through that.) Ice skating, by contrast, is movement for the sake of perfect movement – or more accurately, for competition. And when the skaters attempt those artistic flourishes of the hands, they look as if they are batting away flies.It’s not all bad. The movements themselves can be exciting to watch, but this is true mainly when the routines are at their most athletic and competitive. It’s the spins, the triple axels, and all that derring-do that make it exciting. But these can all be reduced to physics equations.The principles of movement aren’t all that much different from the long jump. If you get enough speed going, then stop the momentum, you’re going up in the air whether you like it or not. Skaters rotate by pulling in their arms after a launch from a toe pick or swing of the leg. It’s a game of precision.Ballet certainly has an element of physics, too.The difference is that a rotation such as a pirouette can be given different flavor, emphasis, or tempo based on training and personal choices. That’s what makes the good ones beautiful. Jose Manuel Carreno’s pirouettes are smooth, buttery, and melting – and no one else in the field can quite replicate them.In skating, the judges care mainly that the turns have been executed properly and end with the appropriate landing. And now that the scoring system has been changed so that skaters are rewarded more points for certain jumps, the smarter competitors are tossing in more difficult jumps. Over the weekend, I heard one announcer explain that a certain male skater was someone who could “think and skate at the same time” because he tossed in an extra rotation to get himself more points.Understandably, routines can’t just be five minutes of turns. Something has to link them together. So there has to be an artistic element.Well, if that’s the case, how about if they all do the same routine, one after the other? The person who does it best wins on points artistic and athletic. It’d be like watching five nights of “Giselle” to see how the ballerinas differ.If the IOC calls, I’ll let you know.***It’s cold outside, but things will be smoking at New York City Center this weekend. Four of the world’s top male dancers are performing together in a program billed as the “Kings of the Dance.” (Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the “Lord of the Dance.” And thank goodness for that.)The reigning nobility are: Angel Corella and Ethan Stiefel of American Ballet Theatre, Johan Kobborg of the Royal Ballet, and Nikolai Tsiskaridze of the Bolshoi Ballet.Each of the men will dance a new solo created for him by a current choreographer. Stanton Welch has made a new work for Mr. Corella. Mr. Stiefel will dance the premiere of Nils Christe’s “Wavemaker.” Roland Petit has made a work for Mr. Tsiskaridze. And Mr. Kobborg will dance a new “Afternoon of a Faun” created by Tim Rushton. A short film will highlight the behind-the-scenes of the project, including portions of the “kings” dancing classical variations.The main attraction is “The Lesson,” Flemming Flindt’s dark one-act ballet that concerns a rather demanding ballet teacher and a student who doesn’t fare so well. “The piece is half an hour long, but you feel like you dance a full-length ballet,” Mr. Kobborg told me. “Flemming Flindt created it for himself. He wanted to do a lot of dancing, but he loved story ballets, too.”Each night, one of the four kings will dance the role of the teacher.The casting for the four nights and four kings is subject to change, but as of this writing it is: Mr. Corella on February 23 and 25; Mr. Kobborg on February 24; and Mr. Tsiskaridze on February 26. Some ladies will be joining them onstage for this piece: Gudrun Bojesen of the Royal Danish Ballet will dance the role of the pupil, and Deirdre Chapman, a Royal Ballet soloist, will be in the role of the pianist.February 23 to 26 at City Center (West 55th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, 212-581-1212).

Artistry or Athletics? Why Figure Skating Leaves Me Cold

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