In the first seconds of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s Olympic gold–winning “Moulin Rouge” routine at Pyeongchang 2018, there is no skating. There is only Virtue raising her arms in a loose port de bras then shooting them down by her sides with a defiant raise of her chin, never breaking eye contact with Moir. Then the opening strains of “Roxanne” begin to thrum and they’re off, circling each other before drawing together for a dramatic, tango-esque sequence.
“You could almost tell that they were going to win from her shoulder roll,” said Toronto choreographer Alyssa Martin. “There was just something about that — something behind the eyes, and in how much volume was included in such a subtle, nuanced movement, which you don’t see often in ice dance. It was really a jawline and a shoulder, and that gave you everything you needed to know.”
Like most of Canada, Martin was watching as a fan, with her university roommates. Now, she’s the choreographer of Virtue’s debut dance work for the stage; a solo piece premiering Oct. 15 at Fall for Dance North festival.
When Virtue retired from competitive skating in 2019 — with five Olympic medals and three world championships tucked under her bedazzled belt — she made a major career pivot, walking off the ice and into the business world. She earned an MBA and a master’s in applied psychology, and landed at Deloitte as an executive adviser, where she coaches CEOs and leaders on meeting challenges and optimizing performance.
But lately she’s felt the hunger to create, to move, return. Dancing on stage for the first time felt just terrifying enough to say yes to. “It’s everything I thought I was excited to leave behind when I retired from sport: Intense pressure, the stress, the nerves. The responsibility of performing,” she said, legwarmer-clad after practicing in a windowless, fluoro-lit Toronto rehearsal studio. “I’m really craving it. I want to feel the tingling in my palms. I want to feel the anxious butterflies, partly so that I can put my skills to the test.”
The project came to be thanks to a helping hand from National Ballet principal dancer Heather Ogden, a friend of Virtue’s, who passed along the message that Martin and Fall For Dance North’s artistic director Robert Binet wanted to invite her to create an original modern dance. “She called me one day and said, ‘Hey, I have a crazy idea,’” Virtue said. “Immediately there was trust because of the way that Heather spoke about Rob and Alyssa’s choreography.” She met with them in the spring, and clicked immediately. “I felt so safe, and like I could be set up for success.”
Virtue began intensive rehearsals over the summer, commuting from the country farmhouse north of the city that she shares with her husband, Toronto Maple Leafs veteran Morgan Rielly, and their two-year-old son.
Together, she and Martin built an original piece drawing on Virtue’s own lived experiences and emotions, as opposed to the characters she inhabited for her skate routines. “It’s not quite modern dance, it’s not quite ballet, it’s not quite jazz. It just feels like Tessa unleashed,” said Binet. Martin describes it as wistful, melodramatic and “big.” Fittingly, the piece is set to a big song by another iconic Canadian — “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” by Céline Dion. “Every time I hear it, it makes me feel something,” says Virtue. “And, I mean … the drama!”
It’s a return to a physical art form for Virtue, but it felt very different from preparing an ice dance routine with its technical requirements and scrutinizing judges. “You’re trying to piece together this thing that feels like art, but you’re hoping to also optimize a score,” Virtue explained. The nature of the movement felt new, too. “With skating, there’s obviously momentum and speed and the glide across the ice. On the floor, there’s no hiding behind anything,” Virtue said. “It’s almost as if I’m yielding to gravity, in a cool way, as opposed to trying to defy it on the ice.” She’s had to “rewire.”
While dance was Virtue’s first love and practice studios were the setting for some of her earliest childhood memories, she hasn’t exactly been keeping up her training. “I was not at all in shape,” she said. “And actually, if I’m really honest, I had kind of disconnected from my body in this way. I might work out here and there, but it was not this physical kind of artistry.”
Working her way back to performance readiness, despite a chronic leg injury that wouldn’t let her go from “0 to 100” as she’s wont to do, felt like a “return to self” and a reminder of how crucial movement is. “I’m energized in every other part of my realm right now because I’m dancing.”
So how does Tessa Virtue like to work? “Hard,” said Martin wryly. “But also chill. There’s a really good flux of work hard and break hard.”
The athlete in Virtue showed in her approach to learning, taking feedback and being coachable, Martin said. “She did bring such rigour into the room. It’s weird to call it a growth mindset, but it really is about the pursuit, about always finding something new to improve.”
It also shows in her performance. “She can get across the entire stage in three movements, in a way that a dancer with 20 years’ experience might not do,” said Binet. “There’s just a real force and power to her movement.”
This dance is a solo, and that’s different for someone who spent 22 years performing as a pair. Virtue and Moir were professionally inseparable, infusing every routine with their signature intense chemistry; it’s how they captured all those medals and hearts. “I did start this process by phoning him and asking if he would do a duet,” Virtue admitted. “Or, could you even just start the first 30 seconds, just be with me on stage? Can you introduce me?”
Moir was keen but couldn’t make it work in his coaching schedule. “I don’t think he’s at a point yet where he’s looking for the fear, the way that I am,” Virtue said. He’ll be cheering her on from the audience.
When Virtue takes the stage at Bluma Appel Theatre, she’ll be alone, doing something entirely new. “Every day in rehearsal, I feel like I have two birdies on my shoulder. One that says, ‘You’re not good enough, who do you think you are taking this stage?’ And the other that says, ‘Exactly. Just try, just lean in, just go for it,’” she said. “When you don’t feel like you’re technically equipped to do something, you sort of pull back. I was really trying to actively break free from that.” She likens it to the advice she gives executives: “Growth comes when you step outside your comfort zone.”
It’s not Virtue’s only big swing this fall. In November, she’ll launch her new YouTube podcast series, Virtuoso, in which she’ll speak with people who are excellent at what they do — Moir, Rielly and Arkells frontman Max Kerman, to start — about how they think, how they’re able to perform under pressure. (She’s training for that, too; she takes note of my interview techniques as she’s prepping to do more of her own.) “Having lived such a selfish career for so long, it feels really fun to learn about how other people are striving and flourishing,” she said. “And I’m just curious.”
Really, whatever Virtue turns her hand to, Canadians will be drawn to watch — and not just because she’s been responsible for moments of euphoric national pride. “What draws me to an artist is someone who can just be in front of people in a very authentic way. Through that fearlessness we access this heightened state,” said Martin. “She’s so authentic and that doesn’t bring her down a notch. It brings her up 24 notches into this thing that is pulsing with humanity and courage.”
There ought to be some kind of medal for that.
Fall for Dance North highlights
The festival, running Oct. 15 – 25, includes free performances in Berczy Park and Union Station, and a street dance battle. All theatre shows go for $25 a ticket; here, artistic director Robert Binet shouts out three highlights.
Heartbeats
“I co-curated this program with Kwasi Obeng-Adjei, who’s an incredible local dancer who works in African street dance. It’s his work alongside amazing artists from London and Paris working in street dance such as hip hop.”
Hear the Dance
“For someone who loves music, I would suggest this program of three performances. We’ve got a work by Tony Award-winning choreographer Justin Peck with an amazing score by Caroline Shaw. We’ve got a new flamenco work set to Bach that’ll be performed live by the Royal Conservatory of Music. And we’ve got a ballet I created with Devin Healey, which brings immersive descriptive audio to make dance accessible to blind audiences together with the music of Max Richter.”
Landslide
“A real favourite of mine in the festival program is Alyssa Martin’s other work, “Landslide,” where she’s diving into the big question of parenthood and ushering in a new generation, and how that changes our lives and our world. For the Sunday matinee performance, we’re offering free childcare for kids two to 11. So any parents who want to see that can drop their kids off with us and they’ll get a little dance workshop while the parents go to the show.”
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