Ice Skating=Singing?

 If there is any sport that is most comparable to classical singing, it would be figure skating.  Opera has many similarities with other sports, but the combination of artistic beauty and athletic ability makes ice skating the most similar professional form.  In this olympic sport, there are a number of specific qualities that athletes work on: their jumps, foot work, spins, and overall artistry.  Each of these have equal forms in the art of voice.  *For warning- I am not an expert in ice skating analysis.  I’ve recently gotten into watching the sport due to an anime called Yuri on Ice and I enjoy the similarity’s I see with my own profession.    

              My favorite performances in the winter olympics is Kurt Brownings routine to the music from Casablanca (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SxtqOEi6og).  No one would say this was a perfect performance, but it was spectacular.  When you combine all the aspects of Kurt Brownings routine, it’s spectacular.  I will be using this video as a reference to what it is like to sing an opera.  

              First, lets take the jumps.  In opera, high notes are the jumps in an ice skating routine.  One needs there form perfect.  And you start with a single rotation.  This is comparable (at least for males) to the passagio.  Passagio sets up everything.  In order to sing the rest of the high notes well, vocalists need to get the the first note in their transition spot on.  Just like in ice skating, if the single rotation form isn’t there, neither will the rest.  Going to higher notes is like adding more rotations.  Of course performers need to practice these harder elements in order to get it into the body over years and make it better and better, but the higher notes (and more rotations) can not happen without a firm foundation.  That foundation starts at one’s spot on technique for the basics.  Now lets look at Kurt Browning’s performance in the Olympics.  For this section, I will be refering to Browning’s performance, but with the added commentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_y-FPJQjcc).  Let’s go to the analysis of Kurt Browning’s triple axel jump at 6:30.  Even though he landed the triple axel, it wasn’t best triple axel.  He’s done it on many occasions, but just like singing, sometimes you can still land it and it doesn’t go perfectly.  All performers can do during a performance is just go for it and use all their practice to do it.  Kurt Browning may have not done it perfectly, but his technique and relentless practice made it so he still landed the jump and keep going.  

             Next there is the footwork.  I’m actually going to reference Scott Hamilton 1994 USA Men’s Technical program (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhKlIng6XLc&t=214s) alongside the Kurt Browning performance.  If jumps are the equivalent to high notes, footwork would be similar to legato, coloratura, phrasing, and overall line.  Lets face it, although high notes are very significant and are the apex of an aria or song, they last from one to seven seconds and there is two hundred and thirty three seconds of singing more in the piece.  This is the same for skating.  There’s maybe fourteen seconds of jumps in a routine and about three more minutes to perform.  I want to reference Scott Hamilton’s performance first starting at 1:05.  I don’t know anything and I know that’s impressive footwork.  It takes a much precision, agility, and repetition to get choreography like this down.  It’s not easy.  Similar footwork examples can be found in Kurt Brownings performance starting at 1:22.  Although not as difficult as the footwork in Hamilton’s, it’s impressive and shows there was a lot of practice to get those moves down.  Footwork has so many similarity’s to legato singing, breath control, coloratura, and phrasing.  First of all, like a skater’s jumps, there’s only so much times a day singers bodies allow high note repetition before it’s just useless practice.  Thus, a lot of practice time goes to other aspects of singing.

              Another aspect that singing has with figure skating is the music.  More than often, artists get to pick the pieces they want to work on.  Same with ice skating.  Kurt Browning skating to “Casablanca” was most likely his own choice, and you can see why.  He looks fully engaged in his choreography and the character is so expressive, like when he throws that imaginary cigarette on the ground.  Audiences know when the artist likes the piece, because it resonates with the entire performance.  Another ice skating performance that shows so much character is the pair Torvill and Dean “Cecilia” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbkOrWP-9n0).  It shows that being inspired by the music can have such a dramatic effect on the artist’s interpretation of the piece.  

              I encourage anyone studying classical voice to relate your art to other areas outside of singing.  It will give you a different perspective of your own art and you might learn aspects that you never would have thought of just focusing on music alone.