Oksana, Swan of Odessa II
Oksana Baiul, the Ukrainian Jewish pro-democracy activist and Olympic Champion, is one of the greatest skaters ever to lace blades -or use them to calligraph meaning, metaphor, memory and moment onto ice. Or momentum and momentousness, all of which she achieved, beautifully and bravely. But more specifically, she is one of the greatest Swans of the ice, and great Swan ballerinas of the ice indeed great Swan ballerinas — that’s that.
Let us explore her influence on dance, skating, and the dance and ballet of ice, whether in ice dance or figure skating.
The flapping arms, which Zagitova doesn’t achieve quite as well as Baiul but does beautifully in her own way, and deep edging and precise point and articulation of feet in the pivot spin, and use of the pivot spin as key dramatic, musical and choreographic point she is making as Baiul often, frankly better did: all this speaks of Baiul’s influence and inspiration.
True, their styles are extremely different and Zagitova’s technique is generally vastly more advanced, except perhaps in spins — where Baiul’s contortionist flexibility and Ruh-like speed outdoes Zagitova much, arguably most if not all the time. But the mix of drama, theater and ballet style and the physical technique, dance style, and choreographic tradition and vocabulary Zagitova uses seems heavily drawn from Baiul, including precise quotes like “diving into unseen watery depths” as Baiul did as the Dying Swan and in other Swan programs gesture/step/snapshot-image and the pivot spin as a choreographic highlight with deep, satisfying, smokily skated edging and calligraphic brilliance of etching, harmony, grace, fluidity, creative expression, dance impulse and dancing. The port de bras is heavily influenced by Baiul’s feathery and artfully human-swan avant-garde/classical mix, and Baiul’s animalistic tensions mixed with raw humanity, plus spirituality/physicality dichotomy and exploration and contradictions and integrations. Also by Baiul’s mounting, flapping, preening, grooming, and diving imagery. And general bearing, demeanor, posture, and carriage of her upper body; epaulement too. And acting style as well as dance style; skating style; and theatrical style and illusion. As well as overall artistic, optic, visual-choreographic and musical style and substance and illusion. And sense of the character’s psychology: a mix of animal and human, for Zagitova as for Baiul, and for Zagitova in a way that precisely and powerfully: pays homage to, expresses, cites, and develops Baiul.
Note the multiple “diving into unseen deep waters” imagery, with all the illusions throughout footwork and program; and how very deep Zagitova dives and Zagitova’s Baiul-like emphasis on deep, roiling waters of the lake as a metaphor for inner tumult plus outer cosmic, moral, political and good-versus-evil kinds. The psychology, spirituality, and physicality of the programs plus technicality and emotionality is very much two peas of a pod or rather, lily pads of a swan-dominated pond or feathers of a wing mostly.
Baiul’s ballet training and achievement, ice ballerina quality and radiance, Vaganova/Soviet/East European and Ukrainian traditions are also relevant to this Tatar Russian skater of Crimean heritage. Also her general ballet style, technique, musicality, and tradition.
Note how Baiul’s Paquita, Elssler and Romantic influences and inspirations, Spanish, folk, character and ballet traditions and techniques, and sense of style, plus Vaganova and broad Eastern European plus Ukrainian ones influence this young skater who became both Olympic Champion and Golden Ice Ballerina skating to the feisty story of a spiky Elssler-like heroine, inspired by Cervantes’ struggles and suffering as a formerly enslaved man, trafficking victim and survivor, and enduring ideals. Baiul’s Romani and folk in both specific-ethnic and broad-dance elements appear here too, influencing Zagitova as they did Cohen; in a different but equally beautiful mix of ballet and folk, ethnic, and character and Romani elements — “ Carmen Amaya” or “ Dark Eyes.” The bright red costume, with its bejeweled elements, sparkles, mix of subtle decoration with a splashy singular and eye-catching beautiful, warm color, and ballerina flair and subtle sass is also highly reminiscent of Baiul, both in her pink-with-a-splash-of-red Olympic costume and general costume and fashion styles, whether of her personal and high- accomplished art, design, stylistic line, and entrepreneurship, or worn.
The costume’s mix of beauty and sass is a link to many Baiul costumes, looks and programs — from “ Broadway Medley” to “ Chicago” and “ La Isla Bonita,” and “Paquita.” As is the connection between ballet and theater/folk/ethnic/character styles of dance and between different styles of music, literary and visual art, and theater and skating — classical versus folk, and other forms. Yet also their integration, simultaneity, harmony, copacetic quality. And connection if contradictions, harmoniously if complexly, dialectically so. The flare of the skirt mirrors the way Baiul used the flare of her skirt, a la Anita and dancing to that music and choreography and literary scenario, in her Olympic as diverse programs to create character, express dance, express music, express theater. And create and express illusion, impression and effect in terms of dance impulse, musical and dance impetus, artistic and overall impression, effect, impulse, momentum, illusion. And drama, magnitude, amplitude, style, substance, soul; soul power/power. And soul, soulfulness, lyricism, POWER.
Creating all this and more with the costume and using the costume as part of choreography: this is all very Baiul as Rivera like, and functions as a kind of quote of Baiul’s as also Rivera’s work. And athleticism and legacy, memory, dance history, skating history; history as such; art. Dance. Grace. Identity. Personality. Style. Substance. Character. Intellect. Imagination. Chic. Beauty.
See also Alexandra Trusova, Olympic Silver Medalist. She’s sometimes thought to be inartistic, but here is quite artistically elegant and expresses a gorgeous Rubies/Vaganova high-kick-acrobatic spiral, glowing just as a ruby wedding ring might, or red-rose-ring. She attains the traditional and classical Vaganova/Bolshoi style quite well if nowhere near the same league as Baiul, the same can be said of Zagitova. But both these outstanding skaters and champions share with Baiul, inheritance, and influence and inspiration, from a rich prior history of the region, and also, Baiul’s personal creativity and immersion in plus gifts to that history, memory, tradition and legacy. And its enduring ideals -transcending Ukraine or Russia and other personal, and cultural, differences.
See also this Japanese professional ice ballet starring Japanese Olympic Silver Medalist, World Champion and great legend and champion of skating Mao Asada. The on-ice positioning, the Swan Lake/Giselle corps de ballet position and closing position of The Dying Swan of which Baiul was immensely brilliantly virtuosic and bravura and immensely personally, musically, emotionally and artistically fond: she does gorgeously and with a Baiul quality. And sense of her inspiration. Legacy.
Note also the tiara, sparkles on the dress, and softness and undulating Makarova and Baiul like ultra-fluidity and oozing Janet Lynn and Michelle Kwan kind of unbelievable bizarre plasticity of the arms like “liquid gold” as a news anchor said of Baiul: another evocation and expression of Baiul. And her inspiration.
From costume, to port de bras, bearing, demeanor, carriage and overall epaulement — Baiul is so relevant here. Also so powerful here. Also so beautiful here; so true here; so lasting and enduring here, like indeed, the artistry of the original story, original music, original ballet, and its great interpreters such as Makarova, and original creators like Tchaikovsky and Petipa, and grand expositors of such a tradition(s) and/or this specific music/ballet like Danilova, Mearns, Fonteyn, Cohen, Kent/Cohen and Markova and so many grand and wondrous more. And profound here. Present in the rippling of elbows and whole-arms and subtlety of wrists, in every glance or detail and Yang Liping like liquid gold quality of the back and overall upper body, and Kwan and Baiul like exquisitely precise and chiseled polished Michelangelo-cut-crystalline-Venetian-sparkling-champagne-art-Renaissance-glass quality of fingers. And violin like precision of hands and fingers and their positioning.
Note the long, clean, flowing lines, violinist precision of stroking, skating skills, and edge control, fluency of the spirals and their linearity, beauty and precision, flexibility of positioning, in spirals and overall, and pointe work here. This too evokes Baiul. Also the “pleading” Swan Lake gesture of hands and arms crossed, and general crossing imagery, visual, stylistic, technical and choreographic themes of which Baiul was also most accomplished professionally and fond; she would use cross imagery in many ways, from spiral positions, pivot spins, crossovers and skating skills and transitional elements, pivots, footwork and turns, to crossing one hand over the other in a gothic-cathedral arch-shape, geometric spin positions with cross-cut lines, directions, shapes and/or angles and general geometry and visual-spatial-architectural-formal and geometric tension, tensions and more. Both Lipinski and Kwan seem influenced and inspired by Baiul’s fondness for crosses and ability to use them both of the lower body, upper body or both, expressively; beautifully. Lipinski did the cathedral pose with crossed legs and much crossovers in her Olympic long, and the cross imagery and crosses both upper and lower body especially but not only the crossed-hands-arms pose with the “pleading” Swan mime, works beautifully and is performed authentically and poignantly by Kwan.
See also flailing/drowning/fighting-back-against-invisible-obstacle(s)/pushing away or pulling towards extremely (transparently) emotional and yet extremely, lucidly classical arm movements Kwan does that evoke Baiul’s port de bras and general upper body expression, carriage, bearing, posture and demeanor. And epaulement, flexibility, elasticity, and stretch. Kwan also conveys the mix of transparency and subtlety, psychological depth, complexity, tension, texture and ambivalence, in Baiul’s skating and Swans and dancing and acting. And mime and physical movement, physical storytelling, physical acting, physical technique and physical theater. And overall movement, performance, artistic and athletic leadership and achievement and innovation; and style.
Also relevant, Cohen mentioned Baiul as an important inspiration to her. And from hyper-flexible and highly acrobatic spirals, to the same in spins, to ultra-musicality and a superlative sense of classical line, style, form, technique and geometry, as well as deep musical interpretation skills and Ukrainian-Russian and Ukrainian-Jewish cultural heritages and traditions: there are profound similarities between the skaters. Cohen extended on Baiul’s crucial foundations and bold, beautiful legacy in highly innovative yet continuous and seamless with Baiul and deeply connected, aligned, attuned with Baiul ways. They also mixed ballet and theater styles and sense of technicality, narration, dance sensibility, and theatricality on ice. And kinds of dance, theatrical, storytelling, pure aka abstract and general musicality. All to create something complicated yet pure, richly human yet coolly contemplative and Platonically idealistic and austerely, idealistically, purely, diamond-way formal, beautifully and immaculately physical and classical yet richly and disturbingly psychological; emotional and literary in the most brazen sense and full of irony and ambiguity in a way few classical art let alone classical ballet or classical skating still less their fusion, cohesion, integration, harmony and combination is, yet purely diamond classical and ruby-sweet elegance. Full of pearly tonality of music — and pearly tonal narration and clarity of motion and physical style, physical technique and overall dancing and physical abandon.
In a way, Cohen is the sequel to Baiul as a skater. Baiul laid the foundation with great innovation and mix of tradition and innovation and with a mix of tradition and her own individual talent as Eliot recommended and Baiul as all great artists did, Cohen extended and reinvented that, while also paying loving homage to and recapitulating, re-developing, re-forming, re-discovering and helping others discover and/or re-discover it and re-narrating it. In her way.
After Baiul, every little girl — and boy, too, like Johnny Weir and numerous additional others — wanted to grow up to be the Swan or Prince or some other or many characters, sometimes more than one at once, itself a Baiul trademark as in her Broadway Medley. Swan programs were popular before but after her Olympic win, they exploded. And exponentially. The stateliness, grandeur, and Vaganova style of movement and sleek sophistication and beauty of Swan Lake which she accomplished on ice so many more skaters wanted to do. And did — from these skaters to Vladmir Morozov and Evgenia Tarasova plus Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov. Not to mention Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze among others. Amongst men skaters, Galindo and earlier Urmanov both did Swan Lake. See the beauty of port de bras and difficulty and flexibility of positioning in the death spiral, a backbend and balletic, lyric and classical style mixed with emotionality and drama that connects with Baiul.
The speed, flexibility — “limber” is Button’s impressed word-and centering and expressiveness of positioning in spins is reminiscent of Baiul as is the long grace, turn-out, flexibility and lines and overall fluency, flow, flowing polish and continuity, spontaneity of movement. See also skaters who danced to additional ballets such as Don Quixote, La Bayadere — Zagitova, Hughes, Zhang — or Giselle — Yuna, Bobek, Gordeeva, Davis, more -or Coppelia (Nagasu and the Shibutanis) or Meditation from Thais such as Berezhnya and Sikharulidze. They also show Baiul’s influence and resilient inspiration, import, legacy; creatively, and athletically. And Baiul’s carrying of the torch of both Romantic and Classical music, dance/ballet, theater, literature/visual arts/visual style + design; also, classical and romantic skating, but also, her own vision, imagination, and individuality of voice and creativity and overall vision. And artistry and artistic, stylistic and technical genius, ambition, beauty, aspiration and excellence which transmitted to multiple pluralistic future generations and communities and nations and individuals and worlds and world of skating and skaters; in multiple pluralistic and future-oriented forward-oriented ways. Progressive ways. Diverse, and beauteous ones. Any program based on a ballet or classical dance of some kind it need not be ballet at all, bears a link to Baiul, her inspiration, beauty, courage, her.
Similarly, see the bird imagery, occasional swanlike movement, bird movement and metaphor and theme, bird vocabulary of movement, classical ballet and classical Eastern European/Russian influences of Firebird programs: also evidence of Baiul’s inspiration and legacy in her sport-art. See programs by Gracie Gold, Rachel Flatt, and Evan Lysacek among others. Also some of the windingly intricate and serpentine/floral/vegetal shapes, forms, figures and geometry and curves of skaters like Nagasu in Memoirs of a Geisha and Chen in her Liping as well as Baiul like Peacock solo among others.
Baiul’s Middle Eastern themes and styles and use of opera music also influenced later skaters such as Ashley Wagner. The Salome arms which Kwan also did evoke both Kwan and Baiul who did them as Coffee. Showing thusly Baiul’s influence on Wagner, others who did ME themed and styled programs (from Cohen’s camel-infused Malaguena to Yamaguchi’s Jasmine and Asada’s Scheherezade and Yuna’s and Kwan’s and Davis’ with her partner’s too, all those Delilahs — Davis, Zagitova, Wagner, Rochette and many diverse more), and Kwan. So too the overall musicality, style of dance and skating and acting, and theatricality. Also the intricate, dextrous and sensuous, occasionally serpentine edging, curving, over curves and under curves and port de bras and bearing: all very like Baiul in coffee, who made brilliant use of sensuous, floral, vegetal and serpentine shapes. And had great intricacy and dexterity. The sparkles and brilliant color of costume also evoke Baiul and connect with Baiul. So does the jewelry on the costume and its visual style, placement and design not entirely unlike the bright-red jewel Baiul wore and other costume skating and personal jewelry of Baiul. Baiul’s style in fashion, costume and overall personal and aesthetic as well as skating style is influential and inspiring as is her legacy of skating and Olympic Golden achievement; beauty; memory; endurance; lasting contribution and impact and sensuousness and bravura, depth.
See also:
Not to mention, her Scherezade and that of Kwan and Asada and Yuna; also, Yamaguchi’s Princess Jasmine in Aladdin. There are many more.
Look at the abandon, flexibility, elasticity, attack and technicality in that layback combination spin. The raw abandon and emotionality, and mix of fierce attack, aggression, abandon, and staccato clarity and musicality with a sense of warmly elastic beauty and grace seems very Baiul. Plus the Ukrainian (her ethnic ancestry is from Crimea) and Russian dance traditions mixed with raw emotion — folk and classical. Note also how she grabs at her heel rather than the ice or stroking the ice, as is customary, traditional, conventional, classical, in her Charlotte, the way Baiul used to grab at her ankle/heel in donuts so expertly and with such precise timing and precise grace and utter beauty and utter technicality, something even the best donut spinners of today such as Asada do not achieve. This mix of deliberate choreographed and intentional visual, stylistic and dance awkwardness and non-, even rather anti-classical form, with very Vaganova and classical-Ukrainian classicism, line, geometry, lush purity, lush beauty, lush sensuous elegance, in different forms and different contexts looks so Baiul. The angles and angularity mixed with precision and classicism, orderliness, purity, and geometry of line and of form, and shape and jewel-cut of choreography, musical interpretation, physicality and dancing likewise. And of overall physical: beauty, grace, technique, spontaneity, abandon, intentionality and calculation.
See also the 1995 Riders Ladies Skating Championships.
Online commentators:
Vegas Zen 8593: “Méditation de Thaïs is quite possibly the most difficult piece of music to skate to. Many have tried but ended up not being able to connect with it. Ms. Baiul’s interpretation here is nothing short of miraculous — it is art of the highest form.”
Patch Lindy: “A BEAUTIFUL. BEAUTIFUL skater! Delicate and provocative at the same time. A genuine artist at heart. So special and unique and versatile. There will never be anyone like her. Ever again. That was a truly special period of time in skating. I’m so glad her performances have been captured on tape to be treasured for generations to come. So unforgettable.”
Nashfan Vash: “Oksana is in a perfect position every moment. Not many skaters can do that. She FEELS the music, and skates with her heart, not just with her blades and her body.”
John Roberts 389: “it seems so clearly she is the greatest skater we’ve ever seen”
Dsfddsgh: “Breathtaking!!”
LDixon007: “We watch figure skating with the hope of occasionally seeing something like this.”
Belly-dancing and shimmying on ice…in a program that seems to have been inspirational to Cohen, who did body rolls and shimmies polishing these to high art and high athleticism and an Olympic Silver: might there be an amethyst medal? Baiul surely deserves one for this. The scent of Ethiopian Jewish or Lebanese coffee, or the bright purple tones of weirdly neon purple flamingly colorful spiced babaganoush:
Baiul’s impact, legacy, influence, and inspiration on her sport and art is already enduring, resilient, gorgeous, profound. Also diverse, global and capacious. In time it can only grow, yet more diverse, global and capacious.
The spiritual themes she displays — music as a vehicle for spirituality, music as a message of meaning, the swanlike struggle between the physical and the spiritual, otherworldly, ethereal, or holy, or empirical and Platonic, or Aristotleian and Platonic, science versus abstraction, technique vs abstraction, art vs abstraction: empiricism and sensuousness, data and sensate world, worldly reality, and worldliness and world itself, vs. Platonic abstraction and Platonic forms and Platonic essentials and Platonic ideals, accidentals vs. essentials: she is a philosopher and deep thinker as much as skater. This, through the Swan metaphor, character, and story, has influenced not only Baiul and her sport and art as a whole, not only generations of skaters, not only expanded the sport and art and our hearts, bodies, minds, souls with it.
But her beloved homeland, her hometown, her Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, and world. In her hometown is The Menorah Center, a Jewish cultural and heritage center. Her skating is like a Menorah or Cohen’s Charlottes, inspired by both Baiul and another famous Jewish skater Charlotte Oelschlagel. It is often narrow at the base (the blade and its position, individually and together in footwork, steps, and choreography) and broad, deep, expansive, flowing, spacious and open — majestically spacious and open at the top. Very open and very broad and very reaching and reaching-out indeed: both legs and arms and epaulement and overall body carriage, expression, and port de bras and demeanor. Her skating, and public leadership, advocacy, diplomacy and way of being a leader on and off ice embody what the great thinker, Sacks, called Servant Leadership. Which could also, as her spirals or Cohen’s be called Menorah Leadership: narrow at the base, broad -and upwards-lifting, outwards-reaching, ever-aspiring, beautifully continuous, knowledge-truth-beauty-excellence-ideals-aspiring and ambitious at the top. Especially Cohen’s spirals, which extend and deepen Baiul’s original, brave, and pioneering artistry and athleticism.
And figural and formal posing and positioning and sculptural sweeps and lines, and profiles, and angles, and look. “Look” in the sense of both eyes, facial and theatrical and cinematic and dance acting and epaulement and look, like, an entire look, the whole package, artistically as in fashion: the Look, or an art collection of Looks. And her skating embodies concepts of cosmopolitanism, global cultures and world cultures, world and international diversity, Olympian and Olympic-Golden connections between, grace, harmony, and human dignity, potential, possibility, freedom, fearlessness, achievement; and sheer openness to and love of learning, truth, beauty, knowledge. Respect, friendship, and excellence: it is difficult indeed to think of skater who better embodies the Olympic Motto. On, or off ice.