DOGME 02 Skating Vow of Chastity
Believing that figure skating is a degraded athletic endeavour and that the time for revolution has arrived,
Believing that no sport can survive if an athlete’s success is dependent on costume or nation, on likeability or fuckability, on event order or historical precedent or the timely display of cosmetic dentistry,
Renouncing Ottavio Cinquanta, the ISU and the vain pomp and glory of the existing competitive skating world, I hereby propose a new standard of figure skating. I challenge the Royal Bank of Canada to sponsor the first DOGME 02 skating competition within this calendar year, inviting skaters to participate and take the DOGME 02 Vow of Chastity.
DOGME 02
The Vow of Chastity
I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGME 02:
- Skating must be done on location. Props, sets, twinkly lights and heaters must not be brought in. If skating on frozen ponds and pitted hockey rinks was good enough for Donald Jackson, I can put on some earmuffs and suck it up.
- Music must not be used unless it occurs where and when the athletes are skating. Rather than overwrought orchestral recordings, I will skate to the rhythmic applause and spontaneous song of the spectators. Less Prokofiev, more Shania Twain.
- Costumes must not be used. Skaters will wear either off-the-rack street clothes and work-out wear, or team uniforms. Admit it, we all want to see Jamie and David perform in those speed-skating skinsuits.
- There will be only two divisions of competitive skating, singles and doubles. If the scoring system weights jumps as no more valuable than other skating elements and qualities, men and women can compete head to head. Pairs and dance teams will also square off. This will give dance teams the freedom to demonstrate their skating skills without artificial limits, and will force the pairs teams to do something in the middle of the rink on their way to the big tricks at either end. As for boy-boy and girl-girl doubles, bring it on. It can only help the ratings, and drag the sport into the twenty-first century.
- Judges can watch the practices if they pay for their tickets like everyone else.
- Judges will each be assigned responsibility for evaluating a specific quality or element of the skating: jumps, spins, footwork, musicality, edge quality, flexibility, balance, power and speed. Gary Beacom will be permanently employed to score innovation in the physics of skating. There will be no judge assigned to “artistic impression.” If a program leaves a good impression, it’s because the skating elements were well done.
- The nationality of the judges will continue to be displayed, along with their names, skating credentials and home phone number.
- Choreographers will be judged separately in their own event. Programs will be performed three times each by different skaters and the results averaged.
- Judges must use video replay, which will be provided and commentated by the skater’s mom.
- Make-up and sequins are forbidden. Anything that falls off the skater will stapled to the coach.
Furthermore I swear as a skater to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a concept, imposing a theme or delivering a message, as I regard the skating as more important than the skater. My supreme goal is to explore/perform/demonstrate/express the extraordinary possibilities of the blade and the body and the ice. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any personal vanity and any artistic impressions.
Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY.
Canada, Friday 22 February 2002
Proposed by Linda Carson,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
