Annie's Gallery

Yuzuru was praised by Tetsuya Kumakawa, a former principal dancer with The Royal Ballet.  A friend shared some of his words from a Japanese fan’s blog.  My translation:

“A dancer must take great care of musicality, and the response to music must be instantaneous. When I watch a skater’s performance, in the expression before a jump, the ‘I will jump!’ vigour appears up front, and the beauty of the body line is lacking in the approach to the jump. As a dancer (watching), I am concerned about that. But of course, there are people who can do it.”

“Hanyu has a very beautiful style and his landings are graceful. In ballet terms, this is because he can do the ‘plié’ very well (the position where you sink the body by bending the knees). To jump high, the plié is necessary. In his case, his awareness extends to beyond the ground (the ice) at that moment.”

“In ballet, we tell the story on a stage. In an ice show, it is a completely different world. The rink is big and the audience are on all 4 sides in a panoramic space. If I do it, I would perform while taking care of my body line towards all angles, to the audience on all sides.” [I summarised the last paragraph]

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1) Yuzu has also said something similar before! He said the audience are in 360 degrees, all around him. So he is always thinking about how to perform beautifully not just to the judges, but also to the audience sitting behind and all around.