Paris (AFP)

"Poetic slam" and contemporary gestures: faithful to their DNA, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron do not derogate this season yet to their artistic ambition to explore new horizons in ice dance.

It's Friday and Saturday, on the ice of Villard-de-Lans (Isère), which hosts the Masters, traditional national competition of the beginning of the season, Papadakis and Cizeron, 24 years old both, will unveil for the first time their two new creations.

Their bias for free dance, their favorite exercise, should not go unnoticed.

It is on a "poetic slam", as their coach Romain Haguenauer describes it to AFP, precisely the spoken words of the title "Find Me" by the Canadian artist Forest Blakk, mixed and arranged with a composition of the Icelandic musician Olafur Arnalds, the 2018 Olympic Vice-Champions, quadruple world champions and five-time European champions, who have made modernity and daring their trademark, have chosen to skate.

"To use a poem, words, something other than purely music, a melody, was an idea that had been on the table for several years," says Haguenauer.

- "Hyper innovative" -

"We wanted to base ourselves on a text, something that made sense, to explore another dimension in the way of moving, to be a little less lyrical", continues the French coach, whom his students followed in Montreal. five years. "These words are broken down into rhythms and we use all these nuances, of course we have to skate on an audible rhythm, it is obligatory in dance, but we will also look for the rhythm given by the words."

"It's very innovative," he says.

In the choreography, developed under the leadership of Marie-France Dubreuil, who runs with Patrice Lauzon the training center where Papadakis and Cizeron are based, this translates into an approach "more contemporary than the years before," says Haguenauer . "Through more jerky gestures, more broken lines, with more break in movements, more contraction, alternating with fluidity, ease, which are their main qualities," he explains.

"It's a very, very different end product from what we've (already) seen, it's another dimension of movement compared to the music I've never seen in skating," he says. .

"It's not cold at all, music with lyrics, rhythm and acceleration, it's very warm on the contrary, very addictive," says Haguenauer.

- Fun on "Fame" -

Before skating their free program on Saturday, Papadakis and Cizeron will start their rhythmic dance on Friday, on the notes of "Fame", "a little disco and quite dancers, known everywhere but have been very rarely used," says the coach, who imagined the choreography.

After "finding it a little kitsch at the beginning", the duo of dancers was convinced by the rendering of the first work sessions.

"It changes them a lot too, the fun side of their personality is more apparent than any other program we've ever done, it's interesting because, in the end, it's the first time they've ever played a story. written ", develops Haguenauer.

If, unlike the post-Olympic year when they had taken the time to breathe, Papadakis and Cizeron returned to work without delay in the spring, they will still have five weeks after this meeting to re-tweak their two programs before entering the Grand Prix competition on November 1st and 2nd in Grenoble. It will follow the stage in northern Japan, in Sapporo, three weeks later, before the prestigious final, in early December in Turin.

Then come in the second half of winter the European Championships, end of January in Graz, Austria, and the World Championships, mid-March in Montreal. Their second house.

© 2019 AFP