Sasha Cohen — Athletic Ballerina
All Olympic skaters — all skaters — strive for long lines, finished postures, and a sense of speedy flow and momentum across ice. Softly curved laybacks and matching rounded arms when doing those port de bras positions meant to convey gentle roundness, are also an ever-further-refined technical achievement and stylistic ambition. Also smoothness and flowing unbrokenness and pure continuity of motion, in skating transitional steps, linking hops or jumps, exits and entries to jumps and spins, spirals and moves in the field. And overall skating style.
Spins need to look speedy yet delicate (or admirably robust, depending on the spin and the aesthetic), at best a flowing, blurry whir of magnetic motion. And jumps, ideally frothily airy as whipped cream and buoyantly light as a wriggling golfish or hopping frog. Every day in the rink, skaters, even and especially world-class ones already trained to amazing heights of technical excellence and stylistic purity, strive for these elements of style — not only in technique, but style, and not only style but the essential feeling and treasured sense of affectionate memory of the most beautiful skaters, of a given step and its desired style.
But of all the great stylists and most elegant, inspirationally polished artists of the ice, Sasha Cohen perfected the essence of skating style in some ways the best: her postures seemed to reach into Heaven, her legs and arms when stretched to reach for an unseen magical crystal or towards a mystical angel; everything about her long, fluent body lines, gorgeously expressive flexible back, and fluency of speed as well as lines across the ice, spoke to a sense of infinity, perfectionism, and ever-better technical and artistic refinement, that captured the mingled emotions of longing, hope, pathos and optimism in her music expertly. Many skaters have great lines, speed or flow; she had all of these, visually echoing and amplifying the other in a wonderful way, and the central visual metaphor of a sense of superhuman idealism, eternal yearning, and passionate commitment to the joyous beauty of her art and its demanding, but uplifting energies and techniques.
More than that, she combined these with exquisitely chiseled posture, wonderful spin positions plus great spinning speed and musicality, and overall creaminess, purity, continuity, and sterling form of style in her skating throughout — that made the souls of her characters vivid. And the essential visual and spiritual values of classical style and skating fundamentals — beauty, form, symmetry, a judicious sense of orderly movement and disciplined commitment to both technique and beauty — come to life especially inspiringly.
And her lines, combined with her amazing speed, flow, and overall polish and extra-fluent smoothness of style, a smoothness and beautiful linearity so intense it seemed to flow directly from, and viscerally embody the music and its emotions and sensuality, spoke to some larger idealism and loftiness of spirit and intention. Her gorgeously lifted, ultra-straight, angelically pure in form free leg in camel spins or even higher and more beautiful and stretched free legs in spirals seemed to say, “ You might think this is impossible, but the impossible is more possible than you know.” They conveyed such longing — or joy — sadness or celebration, and sometimes all this at once, lyric poems in movement. Many skaters convey great style, but only some seem to embody the emotional essence, moral graciousness of manner and fairy-godmother dreamy gentleness the style ideally captures. This is what gave Cohen, even at a young age as here, where at the start of her career she is already a persuasive artist, such exceptional beauty and maturity in her skating. She would only deepen her artistry and extend her style, both technically and aesthetically, despite technical struggles, and difficulties with nerves, throughout her career.
Bobbly and bubbly, Cohen would not quite manage an Olympic medal here — she was not quite as artistically polished as later, and she made some serious technical errors in her long program, a stunningly brazen interpretation of Carmen nonetheless beautifully danced. But she conveys something about the restlessness, endless difficulty yet joyous beauty of skating, and of the Olympic quest for perfection — never attaining it, always seeking it, always improving, never quite nearing the Platonic ideal of skating form that skating, like ballet seeks, loving the process even and especially as results sometimes disappoint — fabulously. There is artistic substance, conceptual interest, and emotional presence here, as well as beauty and technique. The bubbliness and youthful happy-go-lucky personality on the ice here at times, express her music and suit her well; she is also, even at a younger age, capable of expressing nuanced shadings of emotion and the occasionally sinister musical or dramatic theme.
“ Sasha, the kind of girl your teenage son would naturally be attracted to, and the kind that would make you a little nervous when she asked him out,” notes the anchor. Indeed, though nervous herself, her gritty determination, before as during, is also elegantly clear. The music here has a sense of eerine enchantment, and while it might be interpreted as joyous or victorious, there’s also a kind of danger and attack; she conveys all of its varying emotional registers and personas.
Flowing her hands and arms outwards with a poignant expression on her face in crossovers, right before that poignantly skated spiral sequence, conveys the sense of tragic subtext in the music gloriously. One lonely leg extended upwards at the end of the spiral sequence, and then the heartbreakingly exquisite proportions of her layback — all makes us feel the sense of shadowy mystery and haunting cynicism in the music. Note the expressions on her face and dramatic acting throughout, and the depth of her sit spin with arms splayed outwards in a way that expresses the sense of grittilty unsentimental triumph in her music.
The flexibility, speed and abandon, plus strength and explosive pyrotechnics in jumps, make her look like a delicate Coppelia of the ice, or Lise in Fille mal Gardee — a comic virtuoso role for an (ice) ballerina, full of a ravenous energy for movement, expressed gorgeously in quick, crisply sophisticated footwork or equally crisply sophisticated, admirably quick and neat petit allegro. The personality of the joyous comedian ballerina she portrays beautifully, fitting that character with passion, confidence, ballon and elegance; also, hints of more tragically inflected romantic style. As well as classical buoyancy and comic hints.
The wintry, sparkle-ridden costume fits the simple and solemn, yet poetically lyrical music well. Also the beautiful and simple jewelry and makeup fits this elegantly simple, sweetly austere symphony. She looks like a snow angel come to life on ice, and embodies a certain joie de vivre of skating, art and sport. There is a maturity and depth of yearning and sense of dramatic surrender to movement, music and moment in those spirals — even the downward tilt of the head in the Charlotte spiral is beautifully timed to her music, and captures its questioning tone and sense of philosophical perplexity, concern and wonder. Spreading her arms across and forward after her split jump adds expression and shows the poignant aura of the character she creates here and her gift of intuitive feeling for music.
The lyrical musical interpretation and sensitivity, the sense of harmonious understanding and emotional, interpersonal connection with her music, and the way those feelings and sensations radiate out from the lyric beauty of her seemingly endless lines, fluent and port-de-bras-enhanced steps, and spirals and overall flow/speed, and momentum, adds such artistic conviction. This is a beautiful program into which to escape at the end of a difficult day, a pure-dance world of musical poetry and imaginative otherworldliness; also evokes realism of emotion and character.
Her free leg stays so high and beautifully shaped so long and yet she maintains her speed so well — to do both at once is really difficult, and a lovely balance — in the layback spin, it all looks magical. It looks as if an invisible coach is helping hold up the free leg, which appears so effortlessly buoyant and naturally free. We know they are not, which makes it all the more visually exciting, psychologically dramatic and beautifully mesmerizing. Then in the final combination spin, the free leg is again beautifully extended, in a way that seems to sing the music, in both the sit and I-spins, and gorgeously flexible and expressive in both, transitioning with seamless speed and musicality from one to the other. The optical illusion of effortless loftiness, ballon, and ever-suspended grace — makes it all look so much more magical, and captures that ceremonially elegant music and its magic.
In her layback, her spirals, and the elegant stag-infused footwork sequence, she seems to gently invite her audience: “ Escape with me into a glorious just-beside-our-own world of imaginative invention, lyrical hopefulness, and fresh possibilities. Why not? I love it here, and you might also.” A gracious classical hostess — with gracious classical lines that extend out into the memory and shape the future, of the sport. That’s not just classically beautiful, but modernly relevant. What a beautiful and elegantly life-affirming application of classical beauty and values to our modern and graciousness-starved time. Thanks for sharing your unique yet traditional beauty with the world, Ms. Cohen — not just the beauty of your lines, but heart, mind and personality, made the Olympics and our world, just a bit but significantly better for us all. A true maestro of lines, and overall style — and at such a young age. That deservedly merits the title of what the great skater and commentator Dick Button called “ The Wow Factor.” Wow indeed.