married,” or else she might have not pursued her skating and thus missed the opportunity for Olympic gold. Virtue, however, did not let ballet glide out of her life. On the contrary, it has remained an abiding passion and through continued training has, by her own testimony, helped make her the outstanding ice dancer she is today. “It really complements figure skating and so much ice dance. Probably the most important things I took onto the ice from my ballet training are body awareness, knowing where my body is in space, feeling through movement and having that creative outlet while remaining strong through the core.” Virtue also credits early childhood ballet classes with teaching her about discipline, which is “something any athlete will tell you is crucial to success; that was ingrained into me at a very young age.” When Virtue was 15, she and Moir switched coaches and locations, from Kitchener-Waterloo-based Paul MacIntosh and Suzanne Killing to Marina Zoueva and Igor Shpilband at the Arctic Edge Ice Arena in Canton, Michigan, about halfway between Detroit and Ann Arbor. The latter city was where, after some searching around for a suitable studio, Virtue was able to continue dance classes with former longtime Martha Graham Dance Company member Peter Sparling. Whenever possible, she also makes the trip to Toronto to see the National Ballet. She’s a particular fan of Sonia Rodriguez, wife of multi-medal-winning Canadian figure skater Kurt Browning. “Sonia’s photos are plastered on my fridge,” Virtue confides. “Always when I see ballet, or any dance for that matter, I’m so envious. I try to think of ways I could bring that to the ice, but in fact it doesn’t translate all that well. There’s something you can’t capture on the ice.” Moir acknowledges the value of dance training, but says its importance for ice dance is something he’s really only come to accept fully in the last few years. “Tessa is the one with the dance resumé, that’s for sure. I was brought up more a hockey player. Really I don’t consider myself a dancer unless I’m with Tessa and then I feel a lot more comfortable. But I do find the dance training helps so much, feeling confident in your movement and natural as well.” “Scott’s studied dance out of necessity and not necessarily out of desire,” says Virtue, “but in fact he’s a natural dancer. He has it. He feels music. It just comes out of him.” As with other competitive figure skating events, ice dance has been continually enlivened — sometimes controversially — by the inherent tension between its aesthetic aspirations and sporting imperatives. Moir says he and Virtue scrutinize dance videos in the search for interesting moves. “We’ll watch something and think ‘that’s a really cool move’ then we take a look at the rules.” Those rules, put in place to distinguish the sport from pairs skating, can be frustrating for people like Virtue and Moir, who are eager to move ice dance forward. “There are so many things we’re not allowed to do,” laments Virtue. “Unfortunately, that inhibits creativity.” And what passes muster in the Olympics won’t necessarily do the same at the Worlds. In Torino this past March, Virtue and Moir modified the final lift in their original dance presentation when they heard it might be ruled illegal. For similar reasons, going into the Olympics, they’d had to modify their crowd-thrilling “goose” lift. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir will doubtlessly be cutting loose creatively when they tour as part of the 2010 edition of Stars on Ice. Competitively they still have many years ahead of them if they choose to remain in the sport. Either way, they’re likely to remain the gold standard in ice dance for quite a while.
Summer 2010
Dance International
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