Is nostalgia shaping how we view figure skating?

[gkelly]

It is possible to tell a story in ~4 minutes on ice. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjZV2BpA1ho

If you're talking about a singles program, then the jumps and spins should ideally be incorporated into the storytelling.

It would be a relatively simple story. Possibly attempting to hit the major plot points of a longer work that the music is drawing on. Possibly just making up one's own story and planning the program to represent those points.

Most likely in an abstract way that may be meaningful to the skater but harder for an audience to define specifically.

It might be something as simple as "I was sad. I went about my day. I accomplished some things I needed to get done (I landed some jumps). Then I was happier." That's still a (very simple) story.

It is also possible to make a program that is about portraying a character without telling a story with a beginning middle and end.

For me, the question is can the skater portray the character or tell the story by use of full body movement while skating. If they're just relying on costuming and the occasional arm movement, I'm not very impressed.

 

[Mathman]

Here's an interesting example. Did Michelle Kwan "tell the story" of Salome in her famous breakout 1996 program? Well, she didn't attempt any Dance of the Seven Veils naughtiness -- that would just have been yucky and exploitative. I believe that the original choreography called for a short sequence where she glides along pretending to be holding a platter aloft like a waiter, presumably displaying the head of John the Baptist. Mercifully, that snippet didn't make the final cut.

So the whole effect was the costume. This actually kind of annoyed me. Michelle was given several programs emphasizing "exotic" or "oriental/middle eastern." Salome, Taj Mahal, The Feeling Begins. Great programs all, performed to perfection -- they didn't need a "hook."

 

[NanaPat]

But it did not tell a story, or even represent a character in any discernible way.

I think it's easier and much more common for figure skating programs to represent a character than to tell a story. I also think that commenters sometimes use "tell a story" as a catch-all for both.

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

And of course there's the problem (everywhere, not only in Figure Skating) of the narrative. Just as fake artists manage to sell nothing to public organisations and museums with a narrative, passing off as an authentic bold artist with a real expression to "deliver", sometimes we can see this phenomenon in Figure Skating. Old tale after all.

Hans Christian Andersen : The Emperor's New Clothes

Hans Christian Andersen: life and works - research, texts and information

andersen.sdu.dk

I'm writing this just to differentiate this potential narrative about a program, from the story-telling (in a broad meaning) of a program and its interpretation.

 

[Mathman]

This is interesting.
I have seen many posts about being sick of "storytelling" and "character" in figure skating and they all come from the same generation of followers....
This is interesting because the complaint is not about something that I would describe as "storytelling" or "character" myself...

I think that the best explanation is the one given by Nana Pat in post #103 above. The reason that we cannot achieve a consensus in such debates is that we cannot agree on precisely what it is we are talking about. What is “story telling”?

To me, the answer is quite straight forward. Story telling is humanity’s oldest craft, older than pottery, older than basket weaving. Like all ancient crafts, before long certain principles are codified through use. We come to expect something of a story just like we expect something of a pot. In the case of story telling, we learn to look for things like a well-paced plot, character development, confict-climax-resolution, etc. When these things are ignored we feel disappointed.

My take on the subject is, let skaters skate and let story-tellers tell stories. One thing we learned last season is that Ilia Malinin is not a poet. Well, of course he’s not — he’s a figure skater.

In 2004 Sasha Cohen skated to music from Swan Lake. Fine program, won her the world silver medal. Did she tell the story of Swan Lake as exposed in the libretto? I don’t think so. I think she presented the character of a ballerina (as Oksana Baiul had before her).

Semantics, I guess…