What Can a Body Do? Anime Pushes at Its Limits

The show’s animation is stunningly fluid: The skaters swivel and swerve, fan out their arms and legs in a large circular sweep, then tuck themselves into tidy spins. (The two-time Olympian Johnny Weir is a fan of the series and has even performed one of the featured routines.) Victor choreographs a routine for Yuri called “On Love: Eros” and coaches him through the task of physicalizing his idea of seduction: a flirty turn of the head, a popped hip, saucy footwork that falls somewhere between a burlesque dancer and a matador who tempts and evades the bull.

Victor choreographs another routine, “On Love: Agape,” for a different student — also named Yuri — a usually ornery skater, who is here made ethereal. The routine, set to choral music, is rife with supplicant gestures: His body opens up, chest first, to the sky as though in offering, then folds down to the ground in adjuration. In the final moments of the program, we hear his thoughts, and he is completely unguarded, his fears and regrets exposed. He has used his body to tell a tale about prayer and devotion, and that’s the image we are left with as he strikes his final pose on the rink.

Though these sports anime programs don’t depict their athletes as dancers, they work with a similar philosophy of movement. The art isn’t simply in that movement but in the body that performs it, whether live onstage or animated on a screen. These shows say that the art resides in the body’s moment of redefinition, when it may choose to spin, reach out and perhaps even take flight.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/arts/dance/anime-sports.html