The night before they won their first Olympic medal,
Alex and Maia Shibutani were frustrated. They skated what they believed
to be their best short dance of all time, but weren’t scored like it.
They finished two-hundredths of a point out of medal position, but five
points out of gold medal position. None of it felt right.But as
they wrestled with pride in their skate, the pressure of the moment,
and frustration with their scores, 23-year-old Maia pulled out her
computer and found some old home videos.“We started watching
these old family videos we have of us when we were little kids, off the
ice, just dancing together,” her older brother said, before trailing off
into tears.The ShibSibs are the second set of siblings to win
an Olympic ice dance medal, first in more than 25 years. Over the years
they’ve heard the comments from those who don’t understand, or even the
concerns of those inside the sport who do. Can siblings really succeed
in this sport? Should they? Aren’t they limited from the steamier
showings of those who tend to climb the podium? And in those moments of
close physical proximity and high emotional intensity, is something just
… off?“With
ice dance, it’s just generally grouped into ‘oh, it’s romantic. Oh,
it’s sensual.’ That’s not fair to ice dance. You’re probably hurting ice
dance’s feelings,” Alex Shibutani said. “Ice dance wants to be whatever
it can be… We’re all put here to hopefully find something that we’re
passionate about, and hopefully connect in some way to the people around
us. We found ice dance. We’re siblings. We’re doing it the way we know
how to do it.”Alex and Maia grew sterner as questions along that
line continued. No, they’ve never had to ditch a program because it was
too romantic, and therefore too awkward. No, these programs do not have
to be about romantic passion. They can be about different kinds of
passion, too.“Think of all the different stories there are or
types of dance … or different types of anything,” Maia Shibutani said.
“Just because we didn’t see a team that we could directly look up to
when we first started skating doesn’t mean it’s not possible. We worked
really hard. We found our way. We did it. Hopefully, for other teams
coming up after us, if they’re brother and sister, if they’re Asian,
they’ll believe it’s actually possible.”The Shibutanis are the
first Asian-Americans to medal in Olympic ice dance, too. They are not
the norm in this sport, which used to be dominated by classic European
couples and – since Vancouver – by all-white couples from North America,
too. Over and over these last few weeks questions about race and the
nature of their partnership leave the siblings to answer for things they
cannot change – and they do answer. They might not always be happy to
do so. But they realize that succeeding despite lacking similar role
models often means becoming some yourselves.“If you’re sitting
through an event full of ice dance teams and seeing the same story told
over and over again, that’s not good for the growth of the sport. That’s
not entertaining for the viewers at home,” Alex Shibutani said. “Having
a different point of view, which we naturally bring because we are
coming from a different place, is something that we’ve embraced.”20 February 2018
Ice dancing is sensual. The Shibutanis try to portray passion of a different kind.
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