Chinese Skaters Dial Up The Passion
Chinese pairs skaters are accomplished acrobats. Stunts like the quadruple twist and a move known as the 'death spiral' have made them fixtures on the podium. But this week the Chinese will attempt a new feat that could determine whether they will be able to break Russia's iron grip on this sport.
They're going to tango.
At the World Figure Skating Championships Wednesday in Los Angeles, the leading Chinese pair, Tong Jian and Pang Qing, both 29, will unveil a steamy new routine set to Argentina's legendary music of romance. The program, which has lots of smoldering glances and passionate entanglements, was developed with the help of a California skating choreographer who once convinced Dorothy Hamill to spike up her hair and take the ice in a shirt dress.
The routine is a departure from the typical figure-skating music -- think Bizet's Carmen Suite and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. For Chinese skaters, whose athletic routines often leave judges cold when it comes to style and soul, it's a revolution. 'It's allowed us to really reach out and grow,' says Mr. Tong. 'We really enjoy moving to this music.'
So far, it seems to be working. Last month in Vancouver at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships, the tango routine landed the Chinese pair in first place. How they place here will help determine how many pairs China can send to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver where China hopes to win its first gold medal in the sport. It will also mark the culmination of a long personal comeback for the pair, who had gone from winning the 2006 World Championships to finishing fifth in 2008.
Like most of China's top skaters, Mr. Tong and Ms. Pang were born in Harbin, a city in the far northeast known as the 'Ice City' for its long, cold winters and elaborate ice sculpture displays. Both started skating at the age of 6 at what was then one of only three ice rinks in the entire country (there are now more than 20) and were paired up by a coach in 1993. Today they attend the same university in Beijing.
The Chinese are relative newcomers to figure skating but have quickly become the biggest threat to Russia, which has won the gold medal in Olympic pair competition every year since 1964, except for 2002, when a Russian pair tied a Canadian pair for first place.
Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, who won silver in the 2006 Olympics, made their mark by performing the first quadruple twist and are still one of the few pairs that perform it. The Chinese pair that won the bronze in 2006, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, are the same pair that attempted to land the world's first quadruple-throw salchow at the 2002 Olympics (Ms. Shen fell after landing).
Nonetheless, a Chinese pair has never won the gold -- in large part because they tend to lose artistic points when judged on presentation and interpretation. Criteria in those categories include emotional involvement and an intimacy 'characterized by a feeling of surrender to the music, and possibly each other,' according to a U.S. Figure Skating document.
Last spring, after finishing fifth at the Worlds, the pair's manager sent an email to Sarah Kawahara, an Emmy-award winning skating choreographer based in Westlake, Calif. In addition to working with stars like Michelle Kwan and Scott Hamilton, Ms. Kawahara has choreographed shows like Ice Capades and the film Blades of Glory.
'The criticism that I got from their manager is that they needed more emotion,' says Ms. Kawahara 'They weren't relating to one another and were on slightly different rhythms.'
After giving it some thought, Ms. Kawahara says she chose the tango as a way to try to draw out the pair's personalities -- while streamlining their skating and helping them evoke a sense of romantic attraction, even though they are not an item.
In her early sessions with the pair, Ms. Kawahara says it became clear that it would take time to bring the skaters out of their shells -- not just on the ice but off. 'There were a lot of stony silences,' she recalls. Early on, she says she would eat teriyaki and noodles with Ms. Pang and Mr. Tong at a small Japanese restaurant near the rink to break up their five-hour practice sessions. To help break the ice between them, she invited them over after practice to play ping-pong with her son.
For several days, the pair wasn't able to get through the program. But one day, Ms. Pang, who describes herself as 'shy and smiling' and as someone who always follows her partner's lead, let her guard down. One day in the middle of practice, Ms. Kawahara says, Ms. Pang addressed Mr. Tong in Mandarin with a sharp, commanding tone that was startling to hear. Mr. Tong translated for Ms. Kawahara: 'She's the boss now,' he said. From then on, the pair's dynamic -- and their skating -- changed for the better.
The tango is required skating for ice dancers but has never been as popular in figure skating, the more athletic of the two disciplines. Although some are starting to experiment more with genres like pop and jazz, most top skaters still set their routines to classical works like Bizet's Carmen, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and Ravel's Bolero' (This season, some skating fans are so sick of hearing Camille Saint-Saens's opera 'Samson and Delilah,' they've dubbed it the 'new Carmen.')
Choreographers say it's riskier to set routines to a less-conventional tango, which takes judges out of their comfort zone and requires skaters to use deep, strong edges to match the music's intensity.
Mr. Tong and Ms. Pang will perform their long-program tango Wednesday in Los Angeles. In previous versions they've both worn glamorous and flowing black outfits with red flourishes -- Ms. Pang has worn a red flower in her hair. The routine begins with an embrace and a seductive gaze from Ms. Pang. It continues through the compulsory elements with occasional leg hooks, head whips, pivots and intimate gestures that call to mind the tango halls of Buenos Aires.
Ms. Kawahara says that since developing the routine, Mr. Tong and Ms. Pang seem to have relaxed. 'They joke with each other and they seem closer,' she says.
Of course, they're still worried about nailing their tricks -- especially the nerve-wracking jumps at the beginning. Toward the middle, says Mr. Tong, 'we might get a little out of breath.' |
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