Papadakis/Cizeron #9 - People Will See Them And Cry

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The clip Gabi posted of them dancing the ending of the Fame RD looks fantastic. Wonder if the moves are fully translatable to ice.
 
If anyone wants to see the ballet that inspired P/C's Mozart FD, Opera di Roma has made "Le Parc" from 2016 with guests from Paris Opera Ballet -- Eleonora Abbagnato and Stéphane Bullion -- available on YouTube (but I don't see for how long):
www.youtube.com

Le Parc

Le Parc Balletto in tre atti di Angelin Preljocaj Musica di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Teatro Costanzi maggio 2016 Direttore David Garforth Coreografia Angelin ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

(Scroll through the video towards the end.)
 
kwanfan1818 said:
If anyone wants to see the ballet that inspired P/C's Mozart FD, Opera di Roma has made "Le Parc" from 2016 with guests from Paris Opera Ballet -- Eleonora Abbagnato and Stéphane Bullion -- available on YouTube (but I don't see for how long):
www.youtube.com

Le Parc

Le Parc Balletto in tre atti di Angelin Preljocaj Musica di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Teatro Costanzi maggio 2016 Direttore David Garforth Coreografia Angelin ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

(Scroll through the video towards the end.)
Click to expand...
There's also this short clip, available on youtube for a long time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUaMJ_xGK9o
 
cocotaffy said:
Unfortunately the article is only accessible by subscribers but from this tweet Guillaume has officially come out to help other accept themselves is said in the title.
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Here is my translation of the article, if you can't read the French version ...

Têtu: So, you recently posted a photo of you with another man. Is this your coming out?



Guillaume: It was rather funny to see how people reacted to this photograph. Before this publication, I didn’t consider myself as being in the closet, so it is not a real coming out. I never took a public stance on my sexual orientation as I don’t think that it should be required that members of my community do so. Heterosexuals do not have to come out publicly as such. But there were certainly many people who didn’t wonder about my sexual orientation and who then learned about it. I did hesitate a bit before going ahead. Because I am not in the habit of talking about really intimate aspects of my life. I don’t really know what came over me, I just thought: “What do I have to lose really?” (missing some text here …)



Têtu: It was not random to post this on May 17th, was it?



Guillaume: True. I chose to publish it on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. I thought that because I live in Montreal, one of the best places to live as a member of the LGBT community, it is easy to forget that it is not as easy to fit in everywhere in Canada and in other countries, even in France. Taking a public stance is helping others. Over the last months I talked to a number of people of the LGBT community, some of them activists who told me in several instances how much of an impact my involvement could have.

What has been holding me back was that I had the conviction that I shouldn’t have to come out. It seems to me that gay athletes are well-known for being gay. I don’t want to be known as the ice skater who is gay but as the ice skater who wins medals. But I do think that there is still hard work to be done to help change behaviors in the right direction. I am considering being more involved in this cause in the future. May be simply by offering to be spokesperson for an association. Nothing definite for now.



Têtu: How did people react to your post?



Guillaume: I was rather surprised to see many positive comments, it was really nice. Still there were about 200 to 300 people who stopped following me out of 84 000.



Têtu: Were the people close to you in the know?



Guillaume: Of course, I had told all the people close to me already. Years ago. My family is very tolerant and accepting of me, have always been. Everybody who knows me is aware. So only the public at large wasn’t informed yet. My coming out to my parents was not a big deal at all. I didn’t invite them all together for this big reveal. I told my parents when I was 18 at a Christmas party. They were happy that I trusted them enough to confide in them. They were a little sad that they had not been able to support sooner. My two older sisters were told sooner as were some close friends, individually. Generally speaking, I never treated it as a coming out. It happened mostly on occasions where I would introduce a boyfriend. (…missing text)



Têtu: Basically, the way you finally did it on May 17. Does it mean you are in a serious relationship?



Guillaume: The most serious until now. Otherwise I would never have made a show of my private life. We live together. He is French but that’s about what I am willing to reveal about him as I want to respect his privacy. What I can say is that he is 33 and that we have now been together for more than three years.



Têtu: Did the Figure Skating world help you to come to your own?



Guillaume: It is probably easier for me than it would be for a hockey player or a football player because it is after all also an artistic environment which is generally speaking very open-minded. There are gays in Figure Skating, just not as many as clichés make it out to be. There is this cliché of the gay figure skater. Sure, there are some gay figure skaters but there are also a lot of heteros. This said, I always felt rather free and welcomed in my sport’s environment. I never encountered hate there. It was rather in the school environment that I would have trouble.



Têtu: You have been skating since you were a child. Were people on the ice with you aware of this part of you?



Guillaume: Gabriella (the other half of this illustrious duo) and I have skated together since we were 9, so she knew before anybody else. One of my coaches, Romain Hagenauer, who has been my trainer since I was 17, he knew in my opinion. He is also gay. He was always for me someone to look up to. He was the first gay adult in my closer circle. He has been an important person for me, a sort of compass, a role model. I have learned to accept and love my femininity, a big part of who I am. It was there for all to see, but I was never bullied for it in my Figure Skating environment.



Têtu: It was obviously different at school?



Guillaume: I was bullied a lot at school. For me, as for many others, school is unfortunately the place where I was hurt most. From beginning to end, up to highschool, I have been shoved, insulted, spat at. Some people were tolerant and others less so. Not many people fought for me, for sure. And neither did I fight for myself.



Têtu: You started collecting medals as soon as Middle School. Did it somehow help bolster your self-confidence?



Guillaume: It’s only always a small number of people who cause trouble. It did help incrementally because then I ended up winning the French Championship and then the European Championship and the World Championship. In Middle School there were some expressions of respect from certain people who balanced out the jibes. I was a very shy kid, lacking self-confidence, so it helped me to know that I was good at something. Thanks to Figure Skating and my success with my partner, I gained some recognition.



Têtu: Your programs with your partner, Gabriella Papadakis, often show hints of sensuality. Is it more complicated, when you are attracted to men?



Guillaume: It is a challenge in the sense that it requires a performing skill, a role that is part of the programs. For the longest time, the problem was that I could not endorse my femininity on the ice and be myself. This sport is after all very coded with ‘a man and a woman’. The judges are mostly older and not very progressive. You have to accept that. It is part of the game. But I slowly took the liberty to dance in programs that offered me other roles than the traditional macho one. Because very often the masculine role is that of the frame to showcase the woman. And to showcase her, you have to create a contrast, enhancing the macho side of masculinity. To change that is an uphill battle, and Gabriella was always a great support. We are both longing for freedom. She was as just annoyed as I was by the limitations. We still have programs where we play masculine and feminine roles. It doesn’t bother us, because it is also a performance. But I still want to play other roles than a man’s. For instance, roles that are more fraternal, contemporary, where we are simply two souls, interpreting love, from human being to human being. I managed to free myself of the constraint when I realized that it was just a role: I took the liberty to be myself and embrace my feminine side.



Têtu: Did well-known people have an impact on this feminine part of you, which we recognize when you dance?



Guillaume: I never really had LGBT role models, unlike the younger generations (even if I am only 25 years old), who have many more. When I was younger it was still taboo. There were nevertheless a few artists who inspired me, and I would look up to, like Yves St Laurent or Robert Mapplethorpe. But until I was 15, I didn’t know of many and didn’t own a laptop or a cell phone. And then, LGBT people had less visibility than today. Even if it’s just my own experience. Sure, there was Madonna, Lady Gaga: when I was about 15, I took comfort to hear people like them. My mother and both my sisters were dancing, so I never asked myself if I should dance or not. To me, it was vital. You know Billy Elliot? I had the same need to express myself. It was my favorite movie. It made me feel normal. But to see boys dance never struck me as forbidden. In my figure skating club, there were 3 boys for 50 girls. There are so few boys that it makes them special: you need 2 to dance and you need boys. As soon as there is one, he is fought over by the trainers.



Têtu: You took part in the 2018 Olympic Games where you won a silver medal. Does the atmosphere in the Olympic village live up to his sexy reputation?



Guillaume: I was already living with my chum (‘boyfriend’ in Québécois), so I didn’t experience it personally, but I witnessed it. It doesn’t happen as much as that. May be the Summer Games are hotter than the Winter Games. I didn’t witness much hanky panky, let’s say, but rumors are rampant in the French Team. Hundreds of athletes between 22 and 23 in the same place! But I won’t tattle tell.
 
There’s a new article in l’equipe. It’s behind a paywall but someone posted a part of it in Twitter. Looks like a letter written by Guillaume. He has also posted it in his own Instagram but the text is easier to read in Twitter. I love the photo of Guillaume l’equipe has chosen for their cover.
 
Peepsquick said:
Têtu: Your programs with your partner, Gabriella Papadakis, often show hints of sensuality. Is it more complicated, when you are attracted to men?



Guillaume: It is a challenge in the sense that it requires a performing skill, a role that is part of the programs. For the longest time, the problem was that I could not endorse my femininity on the ice and be myself. This sport is after all very coded with ‘a man and a woman’. The judges are mostly older and not very progressive. You have to accept that. It is part of the game. But I slowly took the liberty to dance in programs that offered me other roles than the traditional macho one. Because very often the masculine role is that of the frame to showcase the woman. And to showcase her, you have to create a contrast, enhancing the macho side of masculinity. To change that is an uphill battle, and Gabriella was always a great support. We are both longing for freedom. She was as just annoyed as I was by the limitations. We still have programs where we play masculine and feminine roles. It doesn’t bother us, because it is also a performance. But I still want to play other roles than a man’s. For instance, roles that are more fraternal, contemporary, where we are simply two souls, interpreting love, from human being to human being. I managed to free myself of the constraint when I realized that it was just a role: I took the liberty to be myself and embrace my feminine side.
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This is quite an interesting section of the interview from an ice dance perspective.

After all, there are many ice dance teams in the past who have been siblings, have hated each other, been in relationships with other people etc. who have made very effective and charismatic teams. (And on the flip-side some teams who date in real life have made somewhat boring pairs).

The battle of the siblings teams to find content is an interesting one also - the traditional man/woman doesn't work there. The Shibutanis did some great work there in choosing an image and content that was exciting and interesting without being able to fall back on the easier 'love story' path. Bourne/Kraatz's 'Riverdance' is also pretty iconic for being a program that was striking, but without romantic themes.

I just think it's important that an ice dance team has a ~connection~. I don't think Papadakis/Cizeron have ever struggled there. They are a very effective team. It's not about real life romance - it's about getting that lock on your partner where neither one is diminished and the team works as a whole with interesting programs. And that's a hard thing to do when also trying to tackle the technical side of skating.

But programs outside the usual formulas usually get a bad rap because teams with no connection fall back on them to hide the fact they have no relation to each other. The moment any team skates dressed as clowns I know that it's all over.. :lol:
 
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Coco said:
I can't believe there are people that unfollowed him...I mean, were they surprised? I don't get it.
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Ignorance is rife in the world. That is a small percent of his followers. I usually don't give who is what any thought. To try to properly explain his world my gay brother brought me to a gay night club in my late teens. It was totally packed and out of all the ppl there there was only a few who I would identify in my brain organization as being gay. I have kept that lesson in my life always.
 
Enchanted said:
There’s a new article in l’equipe. It’s behind a paywall but someone posted a part of it in Twitter. Looks like a letter written by Guillaume. He has also posted it in his own Instagram but the text is easier to read in Twitter. I love the photo of Guillaume l’equipe has chosen for their cover.
Click to expand...
If someone has the skill to translate the letter guillaume wrote in l'équipe that we can read in this twitter link, please do it. This is inspiring and so much well written and may be abble to help other people to feel better . you can feel the simplicity and the raw frankness of it without any complacency.
 
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