Our reporter Niu Chunmei
Smooth and elegant figure skating, energetic and dynamic dances, thrilling acrobatics, multimedia images full of technology, plus touching family and love stories... Last night, the world champion Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao co-starred in figure skating. China's first original ice dance drama "Treading the Ice and Chasing the Dream" was staged at the Wanyu Fangfei Ice Performing Arts Center to help the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
Last night, China's first original ice dance drama "Dream on Ice" was staged at the Wanyu Fangfei Ice Performing Arts Center in Beijing.
Photo by our reporter Fang Fei
As one of the important performances of the "Meet in Beijing" Olympic Cultural Festival, the ice dance drama "Treading the Ice and Chasing Dreams" was produced by Beijing Wanyu Fangfei Cultural Development Co., Ltd. It was created in 2017 and debuted at the Workers' Stadium in 2019. is a fully upgraded version.
The ice dance drama "Treading the Ice and Chasing Dreams" centers on the growth of figure skater Lu Xiyun. It tells that under the leadership of her father, Lu Minghong, who is the first generation of figure skaters in China, she forges ahead hand in hand with her partner Du Yuanzhou with tenacious efforts. A touching story of realizing the Olympic dream.
Their stories also reflect from one side the arduous journey of my country's figure skating from obscurity to great brilliance in the world sports arena.
The biggest highlight of this dance drama is the reunion of Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, China's most outstanding figure skating pair skaters.
The pair, who won the first Winter Olympic silver medal for China's pair skating at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, and won several world championships and other outstanding achievements, disintegrated in 2012 when Zhang Dan bid farewell to his career as an athlete. Rarely are they in the same frame on ice.
This time, after a lapse of ten years, they will join hands on the ice again, telling the story of the figure skaters themselves, and helping the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in another form.
In the play, they play Lu Xiyun and Du Yuanzhou, a pair of ice lovers who work together for the cause of Chinese figure skating.
Zhang Dan said that in addition to the plot based on her and Zhang Hao's real competition experience, the play is more about the real stories of several generations of Chinese figure skating people, "For example, the generation of our coaches experienced chasing after the ice age and skating wild ice. Story." Her favorite is the opening story about children's growth, "showing the process of skating people's pursuit of their dreams, so that the audience can feel their original intention to pursue their dreams."
It can be seen in the performance that although there has been no cooperation for many years, the pair, who have been holding hands for 14 years, still shows a full tacit understanding on the ice. The audience burst into cheers and applause.
Zhang Hao said that for this performance, they all carried out recovery training. In the dance performance, the audience can also see more difficult movements such as double sliding lifts, spiral lines, and double rotations.
Different from the competition, in the dance drama, in addition to showing the ice movement and artistic expression, they also need to completely shape the characters, tell the story, express the emotions and say the lines in the drama.
That didn't deter the world champions, though.
It can be seen from the live performance that they are not only dazzling in their skills, but also very delicate in theatrical performance, which makes the story more touching.
During the performance, the four forms of figure skating, single skating, pair skating, queue skating and ice dancing, were staged in turn, making the audience dizzy. The bitterness also gave everyone a better understanding of Chinese figure skating.
In addition to Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao, the play also brings together a group of elite players in the domestic figure skating field, including Gao Chongbo, who won the six-time National Ice Dance Championship, and the world's first national who has completed the "back-point ice four-way jump". Champion Zhang Min, and a number of national athletes.
The play was also included in the "Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics Legacy Case Report (2022)" by the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, and gave the highest evaluation: "It will lead to the emergence of more ice performances. , to promote the integrated development of the ice and snow industry with culture, tourism, technology, etc., to help the promotion of ice and snow sports in China, and to form a group of distinctive and influential Winter Olympics cultural heritage."