[thatshamelessyaoishipper]

I’m honestly so grateful for the creditless Stammi Vicino duet from vol 6 and the official bonus manga because they confirm what I thought before but wasn’t certain of because of the credits which got in the way and because we only got to see like half of Yuuri’s exhibition.

And what I’m talking about here is that Victor and Yuuri switch roles throughout their ice dance.

And yes, I mean female and male roles.

We see that Yuuri starts off in the female role as he is the one being lifted

as well as supported by Victor in moves such as this one:

But as they enter the second half of their performance together, the balance suddenly shifts and

Victor becomes the female partner in their ice dance, now being supported by Yuuri.

And, accordingly, we soon see this:

I wish I knew a professional name for this move, but the point is that when Victor leans to the side, it is Yuuri that supports him through holding his arm and balancing him out. I’ve seen this performed in ice dancing footage I found on YouTube and indeed, Victor would be the woman here, while Yuuri would be the man.

Right before the sequence transitions to Yuuri running in St. Petersburg, we manage to see this:

You’ll notice that Yuuri is leading Victor and pulling him into that spin. Although they both spin, Victor is doing the feminine spin while Yuuri does the masculine spin. The best way that I can explain this is that the one being led holds the feminine role and the one doing the leading holds the masculine role, like in most dances.

All of this we’ve seen in the anime (although somewhat obscured by the credits) and it was enough for me to determine that they do indeed switch roles and it was a very conscious choice on the creators’ side. But one thing that I kept wondering about was: Why does Yuuri not lift Victor? Surely, if he can pole dance while holding Chris with only one arm, lifting Victor should not be an issue? I justified it to myself with the fact that Yuuri is shorter, so lifting Victor on the ice would be considerably more difficult for him than vice versa.

And then the official manga came and swept me right off my feet.

Because Yuuri was clearly lifting Victor.

And when I saw this, I thought: “Wait, why didn’t we see this in the anime?”

And then it hit me - this is the second half of the performance.

And suddenly everything falls into place.

Because Victor has less stamina than Yuuri, when Victor and Yuuri were choreographing the program, they placed the parts where Victor lifts Yuuri as early as possible. And because Victor wouldn’t be able to lift Yuuri in the second half, that’s when Yuuri’s chance to do a lift or two appears. Yuuri has more stamina, so lifting Victor by the end of the program when Victor would be more tired is not an issue for him, and makes perfect sense.

And I just love this so much because it may be such a small detail but it’s so consistent with what we know about the characters and I’m just??? Amazed? Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen such consistency and wholesomeness in anything in recent memory.

But even apart from that, this single panel proves that Victor and Yuuri truly are equal in their ice dance, and by extension in their relationship as a whole.

Which is awesome because it’s further confirmation that Victor and Yuuri and pretty much all of yoi itself is a huge middle finger to gender roles and heteronormative stereotypes (not to mention the real life ice dance/pair skate ISU rules), and I love it and will never stop praising it.

[sachiro]

You’re absolutely right! :D As some added fuel, here’s a link to the original ice dance performed by Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir:

And a beautiful gifset comparing Duetto to this program.

As you can clearly see, they do indeed switch roles mid-program. I did also wonder why we never saw Yuuri lifting Victor but the issue of Yuuri having more stamina and thus saving those lifts for the second half makes absolute sense.

There is something called “reverse lifts” in ice dance and, although rare, is when the female partner lifts the male (since there’s nothing in the ISU guidelines that says the female has to be the one being lifted and the male doing the lifting) but you can see in the last gif in the linked above set that they do indeed switch roles entirely.

Nice catch! :D

As an added bonus, just picture that Yuuri and Victor would have finished in the ending pose of this program. <3

[lanerose23]

I agree with all of this.  There’s one other (slightly older) ice dance that Yuuri and Victor’s dance made me think of basically immediately, and it contains one of the reverse lifts that @sachiro​ was talking about above.  I think the reason I jumped straight to it was because it’s to Time to Say Goodbye (Con te Partiro) which is an Italian duet that you might recognize as translating close to the lyrics of Stammi Vicino.  Which it does, like, nearly exactly, and the song is famous both in a solo male version (because Andrea Boccelli) and in the duet.  So, y’know.  Role reversal for the win.

Also, Anissina and Peizerat originally skated it as their exhibition at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, so I associate it with Japan, rightly or wrongly, lol.

[lazuliblade]

Yep – something a lot of people aren’t aware of is that the lifts in Ice Dance don’t actually use gendered language. In fact, the terminology used is “lifting partner” and “lifted partner.” This lack of gender differentiation also means that there’s no “reverse lift” category. The term “reverse lift” is the layman’s term for it to distinguish between a typical lift (man lifting woman) and the opposite case (woman lifts the man). It’s not a common move because of the size difference between the skaters. Since it’s not distinguished as a separate class of lift, it has the same base value as if the man is the one lifting, so there’s not much technical (or medical) merit in straining the woman with lifting her normally larger partner. Although it certainly makes an impact.

For reference, Italian ice dancers Federica Faiella & Massimo Scali are another couple that does reverse lifts, and coincidentally trained at the Detroit Skating Club – the same place Yuuri trained while in the U.S.:

Fun fact: after retiring from competition, Massimo Scali coached and did choreography at the Detroit Skating Club for some time, too…

2006 Olympic FD:

2010 Olympic FD: