I don’t think that, in my memory, it’s been done before, and we’re proud to be a team that is willing to take risks,” said Bates, who along with the rest of the dancers will begin individual competition Saturday.įrench skater Adam Siao Him Fa and Czech ice dancers Natalie Taschlerova and Filip Taschler also tapped into the trend.įor his short program, Fa used a “Star Wars” medley also infused with hip hop, and for his free skate he sampled Daft Punk’s famous “Harder, Faster, Stronger” refrain made iconic by rapper Kanye West. “Picking a genre that’s nontraditional – you know, we skated to electronic music at the Olympic Games in ice dance. It wasn’t necessarily a style we thought we would really vibe with.”īoth dance duos won their events in the team competition this past week with career-best scores, helping the Americans to a silver medal that could eventually turn to gold depending on the outcome of a Russian doping case.
“It was always music that I remember, and of course, my parents played it in our house and I grew up hearing it on the radio, but I think our love for Janet Jackson came because we fell in love with dancing to this music,” Hubbell said. team, ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue’s rhythm program features Janet Jackson’s socially-conscious “Rhythm Nation.” Madison Chock and Evan Bates’ free dance is set to French duo Daft Punk’s electronic beats and is meant to illustrate an avant-garde intergalactic love story. “When that hip-hop beat drops, he’s gotten through all the technical elements and he can just show off his personality and that changes your view of what you think skating is.”Ĭhen’s not the only skater taking a progressive approach to musical selection.Įlsewhere on the U.S. “It’s edgy, it’s fun, it’s young,” said Rippon, who helps to coach figure skater Mariah Bell, one of Chen’s closest friends on the American team. The eclectic mix of genres seen so far have produced a new tone in the most stylish of performances, which are being heavily rewarded by the judges.Īdam Rippon, a member of the American bronze medal team at the 2018 Olympics, called Chen’s performance a watershed moment for the sport and predicts that his soundtrack will inspire a new and different generation of athletes.
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2 - or expansive movie scores from films like “Gladiator,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Moulin Rouge.”īut the Beijing Olympics has witnessed the rise of more current, mainstream and offbeat music that first took hold four years ago in Pyeongchang, the first Winter Games in which lyrics were allowed.
Traditional figure skating music is often classical or instrumental - Boléro, Swan Lake, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.
“It was like, something that totally just made sense, and it was just so much fun to skate to and practice.” “I’ve historically skated to pretty slower pace, more classical pieces, and so bringing in this faster pace (was) very exciting,” said Chen, a classically trained pianist who’s been spending his free time in Beijing strumming his Stratocaster. figure skater, wrapping up a near-perfect, gold-winning free skate to cap his historic run at the Winter Games.Īs he flaunted through the last minute of his Thursday program at Capital Indoor Stadium with such joy and personality, it was clear the 22-year-old American’s diverse musical selections - in this case, a remixed, Elton John-heavy “Rocketman” medley of classic rock, pop, hip-hop and rap - marked a new, edgier dawn for winning performances. On the barren sheet of ice, matching the fierceness of that energy at the Beijing Olympics, was the typically reserved U.S. It couldn’t have described Nathan Chen any better. BEIJING (AP) - First there was the explosive hip-hop beat drop, then a bold rap verse proclaiming, “The greatest of all time!”