Scott and Tessa's 2009-2010 free dance, performed to Mahler's Symphony No. 5 (Adagietto).
To further assure us of their shittiness, NBC not only censored all other website hosting the Olympic videos, but took aforementioned videos off, replacing them with silly "ARE YOU READY" promos of London 2012. As if anyone actually cares about London 2012 yet!
So I had to refer to the non-Olympic performances, all of which are spectacular even if they don't quite measure up to the simply inimitable magic of the Vancouver version. One of my favorites is the Mahler at Skate Canada, because the camera is close-up, giving the audience a larger scope of their faces and Scott's wonderful physical charisma. The Skate Canada version is also not as refined, which in my opinion allows the spirit of the dance to come through - Scott and Tessa are literally quite breathless in their duo of timeless love.
"Exhaling a long, sensual breath across the ice" - the New York Times loves them too.
As I've noticed in their other dances, the choreography never quite holds up in the middle, probably because Scott and Tessa have to insert all those foot-sequences, or whatever those dancing requirements are called, but the ending lifts - the ending itself - are flawless.
Scott is pretty emotionally overwhelmed at the end, as he always is for the Mahler - it's a bit embarrassing, almost like catching him with his pants down, because in interviews he comes across as your regular charming jock - mischievous and wry and boyish, incorrigibly mugging the camera as Tessa looks on like a fondly older sister. But as fellow skater Ben Agosto said of Scott, he's a fantastic actor. On the ice he slips into a different mode of character, imbuing the persona of whoever he's supposed to be in the dance. And Tessa's just...Tessa, her mood as unfaltering as her routine. The only time I've seen her let go was during the Umbrellas of Cherbourg dance at Worlds, which led a few people to conclude that she and Scott were dating at the time, otherwise she would have never looked "so in love". To which I can only think, unlikely, but I hope so.
Mahler at the "Grand Prix" - smoother, better quality (both dance-wise and video-wise) but more dazzling?
P.S. Unrelated and tangential, though somewhat figure-skating related. I just got into a fight on youtube with someone who said that everyone who thinks the lovely and talented Johnny Weir is gay is just stereotyping and "labeling". ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME? This is in the same exact category as the time when I came across someone on IMDB who spent about twenty pages of a thread trying to convince people that Orlando Bloom was the best actor of his generation.
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