"I began to search out writers whose style, as I was learning to see, was an indication that what they had to say was worth knowing." --Guy Davenport


Friday, February 21, 2014

Abandon in Sochi



Like thoughtful criticism of a thriving arts scene, the nourishment we receive from Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir’s commentary is a sign that the state of Figure Skating is strong. Did Thursday not live up to the years of anticipation and hype for the marquee event of the Sochi Olympics? Having three skaters within .8 points of each other after the short program made every medal a toss-up. But nobody thought the dark horse Russian, Adelina Sotnikova, upstaged by her younger teammate in the team competition, would seize her diva “don’t stand in my light” moment—as Johnny Weir phrased it—and grab gold.

 Those of us who follow figure skating knew that Johnny Weir was a force of glittering nature, but little did we know how articulate and measured he could be. And Tara Lipinksi? As was said of Tina Fey after her stint of Sarah Palin impersonations: My darling, where have you been? Their partnership was so consistently fabulous that people have called for them to launch their own talk show or host the Academy Awards. Perhaps, but half of what makes Tara and Johnny such brilliant commentators is their formidable knowledge of skaters and skating, deployed with every consideration for the skaters themselves. They empathized with those who faltered and reveled in those who excelled, always educating viewers about the finer points of jumping technique that we’d never perceive on our own. We expect them to be catty but they rarely are. Mom and Steve both noted Johnny’s tender attentiveness to Tara's every comment, a dynamic caught in the photo above. Their foil Terry Gannon (whom some called their “babysitter”) was terrific too and kept referring to them as “the inseparable Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir,” their chemistry evidently extending well beyond the broadcast booth.

Fun facts about Johnny Weir: he began skating late, at age 12, but was talented enough to catch and surpass his peers, winning three U.S. Championships in 2004–06, and placing 5th and 6th in the Turin and Vancouver Olympics, respectively. A sometime target of animal rights activists for wearing fur off the ice, in his signature programs on the ice he wore feathers: “The Swan” and “Fallen Angel,” which best embody his classically pure style. A lifelong Russophile, he became fluent in the language by watching Russian movies and seeking out friendships with Russian skaters and coaches. Since his marriage in 2011 to a Georgetown Law grad of Russian descent, his legal name has been Johnny Weir-Voronov. He visits Russia 5–6 times a year and is so popular there that his wedding was front-page news. Johnny had hoped his love of both skating and Russia would culminate in his competing in the Sochi Olympics, but at age 29 the training became too arduous, and he announced his retirement last October. He was quickly hired to announce, and in the months leading up to Sochi, became an energetic advocate for not boycotting the Olympics in protest of Russia’s treatment of gays, arguing that it would be the worst possible outcome for the athletes.

Having Johnny and Tara announce these Games was reminiscent of Adam Lambert’s season on American Idol: a big part of your anticipation is wondering, “What will they wear today?” And they never disappointed, in contrast to the notorious plague of sequins among the skaters. I was intrigued by a Washington Post writer’s proposal that, to earn more credibility as a sport, figure skaters ought to take a cue from gymnasts and wear a team uniform. A seemingly air tight theory that, in practice, would be joy-killing even for a non-fashionista like myself. For every accomplished skater undermined by a ridiculous costume, there is an elite skater in an outfit that delights. Or perhaps great skating sells a costume: who can unravel the alchemy? But a team uniform would undoubtedly trigger the bridesmaid effect: some skaters would look lovely, and others it wouldn’t suit. Further, since gymnasts perform just one event to music—the floor exercise—their endeavors have much less in common with dance than figure skaters’ do. Figure skaters are dancers on ice, obviously, and music and costumes are essential to both. That we make figure skating into a sport with judging causes discomfort to certain sports purists, yet judging and competition are every bit as intrinsic to the performing arts as they are to judged sports. At the highest levels, all professional dancers and musicians and actors have risen through the ranks via auditions, prizes, and evaluation by directors. Instead of criticizing figure skating for being too artistic, why not make all of the performing arts into sport?

These days it’s tough to argue that all this attention to fashion in figure skating is misplaced, given Oregon college football’s varying uniforms or the ceaseless redesigning of basketball shoes. But only in figure skating do we find ourselves critiquing make-up. Am I the only one who applauded the fresh-faced natural look of Russians Yulia Lipnitskaya and Adelina Sotnikova? While Gracie Gold’s lavish frocks were tasteful, her make-up and that of many others seemed garish. They wouldn’t have looked out of place on a cheerleading squad. By contrast the Russians had more gravity: Yulia’s “girl in the red coat” costume had narrative heft, her evident nervousness sadly cohesive with the grave Schindler’s List theme, and Adelina’s Ballanchinesque modernism in the dance vocabulary of her long program worked beautifully with the muted grey dress. 

Ultimately, the skating-and-fashion alchemy prevailed in my favorite competitor, “Queen” Yuna Kim, whose mesmerizing skating and loveliest dresses had no storylines other than the embodiment of beauty. I am still overcome every time I replay her “Send in the Clowns” short program in the yellow dress. It was not enough for the judging rubrics, weirdly, thus launching figure skating’s newest scoring controversy. I would have been thrilled to see Yuna repeat gold from Vancouver, but I was persuaded by Tara and Johnny that Adelina deserved gold for skating the most difficult program almost flawlessly and with—as Johnny put it—“abandon.” Let the gold medals be spread around, perhaps.

Watching Yuna Kim's programs over and over to console myself, I am struck by the irony of her song choice in “Send in the Clowns.” This poignant hit from the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music is sung by a regretful actress in her twilight, with the lyric: “Isn’t it queer, losing my timing this late in my career?” At age 23 Yuna may have felt that Sochi was her twilight. Yet Tara and Johnny said she was better than in Vancouver, and I observed more maturity and substance to her skating, the girlish vamping from her Vancouver programs wholly absent in Sochi. Skating to an instrumental version of “Send in the Clowns,” her timing was inspired: as violin and cello richly bowed each chord, at the perfect moment of its gorgeous sustaining came the whoosh of blades cutting ice as Yuna launched into her jump, awestruck applause scattering in her wake. Suzanne Farrell was Ballanchine’s preeminent muse for her exquisite timing, which she also miraculously combined with abandon. We see the impossibility of this in the contrasting styles of Adelina and Yuna. Will such all-encompassing artistry ever take the ice?