Choreoliteralism is not a dance genre, per se, though it may certainly correlate with the off-ice category of lyrical dance, in its primary meaning — a balletic/jazz-rooted form illustrating lyrics equal to or over melodic line and rhythm. In other words, lyrical dance relies on a fairly literal depiction of a song’s lyrics. On the ice, lyrical has primarily come to be used to refer to any soft, often romantic program style drawing on ballet-influenced upper body shape and line and, ironically, usually skated to instrumentals. Examples in the current free dance era alone are numerous; Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s 2009-10 Mahler, Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker’s 2013-14 Amelie and Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron’s 2014-15 Mozart all can be classed under this umbrella (while the latter team’s free was inspired by a contemporary ballet, on-ice movement in its limitations and the primary emphasis on emotionalism over refinement would compel me to consider the piece more lyrical than ballet, versus a program clearly drawing on recognized elements of ballet technique).
But all of that is to miss the point, which is the true concept of “lyrical” dance in skating form. And here we draw a distinction between choreoliteralism and narrative movement. A good program can tell a story through abstract gesture. Virtue and Moir’s Carmen utilized modern dance language to tell a reasonably clear-cut story; Hawayek and Baker’s new Theory of Everything free plainly depicts Stephen Hawking’s battle with ALS without sacrificing the integrity of a contemporary dance approach. No, what we talk about when we talk about choreoliteralism is something more on-the-nose.
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