Watching a pair of figure skaters is a lot like watching professional dancers, especially when those skaters are professional Olympic-caliber skaters. Professional dancers and skaters make it look so easy, but it’s absolutely not. Figure skating is a beautiful, graceful sport that’s also fraught with talent and strength. Oddly enough, the music they choose for their skating routines can be as important as the moves they make in their routines. If the music they choose isn’t just right, the routine can fall flat. But when the nail it with the perfect music? Magic happens.
French skating duo Vanessa James and Morgan Cipres performed a routine to a song that left the audience and the judges speechless. Except for one fall, the perfection of their routine worked beautifully with their unusual choice of music. The song they chose was “The Sound of Silence,” a mega-hit by Simon & Garfunkel. But the version they chose to use was the Disturbed cover of the iconic song. In 2017, this talented pair of skaters captivated the world at the 2017 Word Pairs Competition as they glided effortlessly over the ice. Their jumps and lifts were astounding and set to this music; it was absolutely mind-boggling.
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Figure skating is beautiful to watch, but something about what they did that day, along with the exceptional music, was more moving than the routine would have been had they chosen a more cheerful tune. “The Sound of Silence” is such an important song in the history and culture of our country that the Library of Congress included it in a special collection for recordings that are historically, culturally, or aesthetically important. When you think about the fact that this song flopped when it was first released by Simon & Garfunkel, it’s just a miracle that it was re-released and become a masterpiece and a national treasure.
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By the time Morgan and Vanessa finished skating to “The Sound of Silence,” the audience was on its feet as they gave this talented young couple a standing ovation. Watch the video below.
