The Icarus of ice: bittersweet film celebrates life of skating star John Curry

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  • doversoul1
    Ex Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 7132

    The Icarus of ice: bittersweet film celebrates life of skating star John Curry

    Does anyone remember John Curry’s gold-medal performance? I don’t know if this was world-wide or just a local extra but the broadcast was followed by a performance by Wayne Sleep dancing to the same music (I can’t remember what it was). It looked so awkward compared to the skating performance I’d just watched that it was almost painful to watch.

    When I think about John Curry, I always think of Alfred Dellar; both men lifted their arts out from what was seen as little more than a necessity. Men’s figure skating became Art after Curry but Robin Cousin was a very different skater; he was a performer through and through (apparently Curry hated performing in public, or so I read somewhere). Countertenor equivalent should be Andreas Scholl but I think Philippe Jaroussky is more like Cousin. Both arts have changed beyond Curry and Dellar must have ever dreamed.

    It will be good to be reminded how it all started. I wonder if John Curry was born half a century too soon.
    The British Olympic figure skater and pioneering gay athlete is to shine again in a documentary telling his poignant story, writes Vanessa Thorpe
  • jayne lee wilson
    Banned
    • Jul 2011
    • 10711

    #2
    John Curry might have had a happier life born later, but then he wouldn't have been such a pioneer, and a true tragic hero, in both a sporting and human sense. I noticed his art the moment he appeared - I though it was wonderful to see a man expressing himself through such fluid movement that way. An elegantly Dionysian God of the Dance.

    I recall an interview with David Coleman, where Coleman referred to "these rather tiresome references to your lifestyle..." Coleman spoke to him as the champion he was, and I though the better of the commentator for it.

    The film was featured in the Guardian recently - really looking forward to it!

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