Gabriella Papadakis and Madison Hubbell discuss their partnership and the future of ice dance
They are not the first same-sex team in ice dance.
And yet: Gabriella Papadakis and Madison Hubbell are doing something revolutionary with their skating together at Art on Ice.
You can see examples of two men or two women skating together in shows across the world – not to mention novice competitors in Canada, the decades of competitors at the Gay Games, and Guillaume Cizeron’s program with Stéphane Lambiel at Fantasy on Ice last year, to name only a few examples.
What makes Gabi and Maddie remarkable is not just that they are two female Olympic champions performing together, but that they explicitly intend for this program to be an example, a statement, and a catalyst for change.
I spoke to Maddie and Gabi at Art on Ice in Zurich, shortly before their second performance on the three-city tour.
Part of the inspiration for performing together said Maddie, “comes from wanting to see change in the sport and wanting to see more opportunities for people who maybe don’t find the perfect partner in the opposite gender, and to explore what it looks like to have more participants.”
Both expressed that they were unusually lucky to easily find the right male partners for their competitive careers. “I think with [success] comes responsibility,” said Gabi, “to have a certain visibility, and now that I’m retired and I’m thinking about my career and all the great things, but also everything that I’ve seen, [I’m] thinking about the talents we lost because they didn’t get those opportunities. For me, it’s about just expanding and diversifying the scope of people that can get to experience ice dance.”
Maddie’s experience as a coach has also influenced her sense of the change that is needed. “Certainly, seeing young girls do tryouts now, there is a little bit of like an, ‘oh, I hope he picks me,’ without any question of, ‘do I want to pick him?” And I think that would be the same no matter what when there’s that much of an imbalance of opportunity. So, yeah, I think it would be interesting to see what happens when there are so many more options. Maybe people would be held to a higher standard and ask themselves a little bit more if this is really the right environment for me.”
Maddie is coaching in Canada, where teams of any gender are now allowed to compete at the national level. She’s excited to shepherd some of these teams but also knows that the opportunity will be limited until the International Skating Union takes action.
“I think there’s still a tendency to enter into this career knowing that it takes, especially in ice dance, 15, 20 years of hard work and financial input and all of that from a family. It takes all that time to get to the ultimate goal, which most kids start their career saying, ‘I’ll be world champion, I’ll be Olympic champion, that is what I’m here for.’ It’s a sport that is built around that dream, I believe, in my experience. And I think that as wonderful as it is, and I’m happy that Canada has taken that step, I think now the burden falls upon the ISU to figure out how to open the door up into those more international events that the kids dream about participating in. Because you’re asking families to invest many years and tens of thousands of dollars and all of this effort and to imagine that you become extremely successful, the top of Canada, and you won’t be allowed to participate internationally doesn’t really make sense.”
They expressed the hope that the ISU may be ready to hear their arguments after this Olympic cycle finishes.
While this advocacy is vitally important, it shouldn’t overshadow the skating itself. Maddie and Gabi have produced a work of art that is full of softness and intimacy. The program doesn’t have the showy elements that we have come to expect from elite ice dance, such as the acrobatic lifts and elaborate twizzle sequences. This leaves us to see the interplay between these two human beings, and their glide on the ice.
It took some bravery from both women to put out a performance that differs so much from their previous competitive programs. Yet Maddie expressed that the imperfections are part of the point. “The reality is that talking with some of my young students over the last two years that this could have been an option for them, part of that fear to do it is to be the first and for it to be imperfect and for people to judge. And so who am I to try and urge them to do it if I’m unwilling to put out a product that’s less than perfect? So I’m trying to keep that in mind.”
At Art on Ice, a show where skating often takes a backseat to spectacle, the subtlety of this piece was a breath of fresh air. It felt improvised, with movements generated by the feelings inside the skaters and the demands of the music.
This is why we dance, I found myself thinking. We dance to connect with ourselves and each other. I saw the imperfections, such as the free legs and arms that didn’t match perfectly, as a positive. It gave the impression that the tenderness and discovery that we see on the ice was really taking place in the moment.
“The way that I learned skating when I was young,” shared Gabi, “it was very traditional in the sense that you know I was taught from a very young age that the boys would lead, the girls would follow, there were very different expectations for boys and girls. For women, it was being sexy and fragile and elegant. And for men, it was very different. It was strong, but there wasn’t necessarily a lot of space to dance as much as the girls would have. It took me a really, really long time to start questioning it. I think it was maybe at the end of my career that Guillaume and I were like, ‘well, I don’t know actually about that.’ And it was just something that didn’t feel like it was interesting to us to participate in anymore. But it’s true that although we deconstructed a lot of things and we tried to do our own thing, we still had habits that were anchored in us for so many, many years.”
In this project – as in Stephane’s with Guillaume – we see a different idea of what ice dance could be. Yes, it challenges the gender roles, but not only that. It also breaks through the slick and polished surface of the sport, and shows us something more beautiful underneath, in the choreographed, and nonetheless authentic intimacy of two artists and friends exploring what they can say together. They are reconnecting with the magic of the art, in a way that I would love to see in more teams, including the female-male partnerships.
Gabi agreed that opening the sport could be good for all kinds of teams. “Dancing with Maddie, it’s just like we had no habits. There was no script that I knew how to follow and it was in a way very freeing…I think just seeing different ways of skating, that same-sex couples can choreograph and dance in ways that are like completely genderless, I think it could inspire also some different gender couples who don’t feel like they fit into that script, and let them be inspired to try different things. So I think it could be good for everybody.”
For Art on Ice, Gabi and Maddie are skating to a live performance of “Not Loud Enough” by the Swiss artist Marius Bear. They only had three weeks to prepare this project, while working around Maddie’s coaching obligations, which limited some of their choices.
“For this project, there was kind of a specific direction,” said Maddie, “when it came to the music and the choreography and the point we were in the story of the show, and so we were maybe steered into a direction that maybe looks traditionally soft, intimate… It’s kind of a conversation, a discussion between self and self-acceptance. And so I think that maybe it does fit more into the traditional ice dance aesthetic because you know we’re wearing two dresses, which people are gonna say are two women’s costumes, and the way that we flow across the ice is more feminine by what they usually decide is that standard but I think it suits the song, it suits the vision of the whole piece. If we were to make a different project at another time, I think it would be interesting to explore more in this in the way of the aesthetic and a costume and something that maybe was a little bit more staccato and powerful and a different skating style.”
“I think it’s mostly a personal journey that I’m on, too,” added Gabi, “to embrace my relationship with gender and my relationship with myself with more and more freedom. I let go of things that I’ve been taught or things that I’ve just imitated without really thinking about it. And I think I’m someone who loves to play with different energies, whether they’re feminine or masculine, and both very much equally. So I think it’s when we dance, and yes, even if we are more typically feminine, it still comes from a very authentic place.”
Hopefully, this tour is just the start for Maddie and Gabi. They have been pleasantly surprised by the opportunity and the interest their skating has received from the media. Maddie confirmed that “neither one of us are opposed to future projects. Certainly, I feel that I would love to continue this project also when it comes to coaching. I would love to be someone who could help young couples explore what this means and try to shape this sport in a different way – and hopefully, we’ll have some young couples at our school very soon.”
Watch the full video interview on the Future of Figure Skating YouTube channel.
