Originally Posted by Metapour
I'd like to see someone skate to John Lennon's Imagine. Has anyone skated to it? That would be cool...John's Imagine seems relevant to this thread
Megan WIng and Aaron Lowe skated one of the most powerful and moving free dances I have ever witnessed at Worlds in 2003 to a John Lennon medley.
The world figure skating championships were in Washington, DC, and ran from March 24 to March 30 of 2003. On March 20, the US had just begun the invasion of Iraq. The Washington papers and the web message boards were full of speculations about whether French or Canadian skaters would be booed by the Washington audience, due to their countries' opposition to the invasion. At every event, people were just a bit edgy, wondering whether anything untoward would happen.
I'm sure Wing & Lowe were very conscious of the tenor of feelings in the US-after all, at the time, they were training with Igor Shpilband in this country. They obviously knew what they were about to do.
I had never seen this dance, since Wing & Lowe were not top-ten skaters, and so were not shown on American TV, as they were the 3rd place Canadians in the event, behind Bourne and Kraatz & Dubreuil and Lauzon. I am sure a large part of the audience had also never seen it.
From the moment they stepped on the ice in those obvious 60's peace costumes, I was certainly holding my breath, and I'm sure others were, too.
They skated it beautifully and with great conviction, although the steps did not have the difficulty of the winning skaters, perhaps.
Their performance ended with the cut from Imagine
You may say that I'm a dreamer
but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one
They skated it with large peace symbol necklaces, and Aaron's tie-dye tee shirt had a peace symbol.
They finished 12th in the FD, but this is the only performance I have ever seen that literally left me with tears in my eyes, crying for my country's shame and for their bravery.
The video is not currently on youtube, but is available. The copy I have is from British Eurosport who were quite nonplussed and not sure what to say, as Britain was participating in the invasion. I would love to have a copy with neutral or nonEnglish commentary.
And, BTW, the two of the three most popular performances in Washington, DC, were not by Americans. The Shen & Zhao long program (still one of my very favorites) was most popular, and the Bourne & Kraatz finally winning the ice dance was very, very popular. (Kwan winning the ladies would be the 3rd).
Reactions to the men's event were mixed. Tim Goebel skated a really good LP, but the event was won by a flawed skate by Plushenko, who AFAIR, was injured. Both skaters were cheered but opinions differed as to who had skated best that night. Those who sat on the side of the rink where the judges were sitting seemed more pro-Plushenko than those who sat on the other side. This is when I first became aware of how judge-centric (and ignoring of the other sides of the rink) Plushenko's program for that year was.
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