Beautiful movements, gorgeous costumes, exquisite makeup, beautiful music... The addition of these elements makes figure skating more ornamental than other winter competitions, so it is more popular with the public. Among them, music can be described as the "soul" of figure skating, and the competition repertoire has an important impact on the image, costume and choreography of the contestants. Today, we will talk about the "song list" in the figure skating arena.
At first, figure skating was a "silent" competition, and it was not until the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid that figure skating "held hands" with music for the first time: an orchestra walked on the ice rink and played the same piece in a loop to accompany all the players. After a long period of time, the contestants gradually gained greater musical choices, but only pure music without lyrics. In order to attract more young audiences, from 2014, the International Skating Federation announced that it would allow lyrics to appear on the figure skating soundtrack. Since then, the music on the figure skating field has diversified.
Due to the consideration of the story, audience familiarity and recognition of the song, the soundtrack of classic film and television dramas, classic opera and classical music are usually the most commonly used tracks for figure skaters. In recent years, ethnic wind music and pop music have gradually gained the favor of players. Overall, the playlist on the figure skating track has the following genres:
classical music
Since the appearance of music on the figure skating field, classical music has been a favorite genre of figure skaters, such as Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, Chopin's Narrative No. 1 in G minor, And Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Among them, "Carmen" created by French composer Bige is the most popular figure skating soundtrack, which has been selected many times in women's singles, men's singles, pair skating, ice dance and other projects. In the figure skating arena of this Winter Olympic Games, classical music still occupies half of the song selection.
Musical
In 2014, the figure skating soundtrack officially lifted the ban on vocals, and an increasingly diversified track appeared on the track of figure skating. Among them, the musical selection has become more prominent in the figure skating soundtrack with its dramatic lyrics, familiar rhythm and highly performative tension. Musicals such as "Phantom of the Opera", "Les Misérables", "Romeo and Juliet", "Moulin Rouge", "The Lion King", etc., are all popular songs for figure skating. According to the statistics of musical theater lovers, including "Sunset Boulevard" performed by Chinese player Zhu Yi in the women's singles short program competition of the team competition, more than 10 musical theater tracks will appear in the figure skating project of this Winter Olympics. In the figure skating free dance competition held on the morning of the 14th, excerpts from "Moulin Rouge" and "Romeo and Juliet" were prominently listed.
Ethnic music
Figure skating, which originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-18th century, has a history of hundreds of years in Europe and the United States, and the podium of the World Series has long been monopolized by Europeans and Americans. In order to make the works understand and resonate with more judges and audiences, many Asian players will choose to interpret European and American music. However, in recent years, more and more oriental elements have stood out on the figure skating field, and "national style" classics such as "Liang Zhu" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" have become the choice of many Chinese players and Chinese players.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, Chinese figure skaters are even more energetic to make the world hear China's voice. Men's singles player Jin Boyang used the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" excerpt in the short program. Peng Cheng/Jin Yang chose excerpts from the tracks of the movie "Night Feast" in the team double free skating. At this Winter Olympics, the ice dance group Wang Shiyue / Liu Xinyu, whose achievements are rapidly improving, combined the costumes of the green mountains and green waters with chinese style in the ice dance free dance, and interpreted the soundtrack of the movie "Kung Fu Panda", "Kung Fu Piano", which not only showed Chinese style music, but also took into account the acceptance of the international audience.
It is not only Chinese players who choose to interpret national music. On February 10, Japanese figure skater Yu Yu, who challenged the 4A in the men's singles competition at the Beijing Winter Olympics, used a Japanese song "Heaven and Earth", which tells the life of Japanese warrior Uesugi Kenshin. Four years ago, he also brought "Yin and Yang Division" to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and his skills were amazing.
popular music
Pop music has also become a "regular" on the contestants' song selection list due to its high degree of singing and strong rhythm, and in the ice dance free dance competition of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the first Ukrainian group to appear on the opening stage ignited the passion of the audience with a Lady Gaga's "Bad romance".
Not only the popular music of the moment, but also the classic pop music of different eras may be reproduced in the figure skating arena. American Chen Wei, who won the men's single skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics, used a song "Rocket Man" in the free skating competition, which is based on the famous British rock band Rolling Stones. Wang Shiyue/Liu Xinyu's tracks in the Ice Dance Rhythm Dance come from "Elvis Presley's Trouble" and "Blue Sheepskin Boots", which shows the retro rock style.
The different styles of dance music and the wonderful performances of the athletes allow the players to boldly express multiple themes while enjoying the ice art of figure skating. The beijing winter olympics figure skating competition will continue until February 19, the 20th will also stage an exhibition match, what other moving tracks will appear on the figure skating field? Let's wait and see!