Ruth Leon recommends… Torvill and Dean – Ravel’s Bolero

Torvill and Dean – Ravel’s Bolero

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I have always loved figure skating, especially ice dancing. It seems to me the closest experience to flying that a human can have, this lack of connection to the earth, precise and almost unworldly in its combination of freedom and specificity.

This week, quite by accident, while looking for something else, I watched Torvill and Dean’s  gold-medal winning performance in the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo where their interpretation of Ravel’s Bolero  won, and deserved, a perfect score.

Today’s skaters are expected to do more by way of spectacular moves, higher jumps, faster spins, more contortions, in flashier costumes, but this Torvill and Dean dance, and it is dancing, can never be bettered for technique, musicality, confidence, and that indefinable something that separates talent from genius. It deserves to be watched again and again for its sheer artistry. 

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