The Lark Ascending and Yuna - Yuna Kim (2)

The lark ascending was 'art' rather than 'sport'

Her first season as a senior skater was in 2006 right after the gold medal from world junior championship. In short, I would say her performance was incomplete version due to her injury, but the short programme 'El Tango de Roxanne' and the long programme 'The Lark Ascending' were great enough to become the legends. A number of her loyal fans including the author particularly love these two programmes since she was just a girl rather than the queen.

'El Tango de Roxanne' showed that a music with strong and fast beat so well fit together with her skating style and techniques. She broke world record by scoring 71.95, and this definitely showed the world what they were about to see from Yuna for the next several years. Her performance in short programme in world championship is famous for high score and her debut performance in world championship, and yet many South Koreans' favourite might be 'The Lark Ascending'.

People agree that Yuna's 'The Lark Ascending' has something special. For me, I think it's special because her jumps, spins, step sequences and spirals do not look like the compulsory elements in the programme but a part of her choreography. Watching other figure skaters' skating, you get to count how many jumps they have done during performance. But in 'The Lark Ascending', all the technical elements are so beautifully integrated with the whole choreography, so the whole programme runs extremely smoothly. Of course, 'The Lark Ascending' is the masterpiece of Yuna's choreographer David Wilson. With that said, no skater other than Yuna can execute the choreography in such a beautiful way. When Yuna reached the level of perfection with 'Danse Macabre' or 'James Bond Medley', I used to think that Yuna's 'The Lark Ascending' was possible because she was a young girl back then. But when Yuna came back with 'Homage to Korea' in 2011 World Championship, her choreography in Arirang seemed to be another version of 'The Lark Ascending'. Yuna's got long arms and legs, which would be a great advantage for expressing a music with slow tempo. On top of that, Yuna is simply a good dancer. She knows how to dance with a music with slow tempo as well as fast and slow beat.

I hope Yuna include 'The Lark Ascending' in her ice show someday. She's got so-called legendary programmes such as 'Danse Macabre' and 'Concerto in F', which will resound for a long time as a classic skating programme. Yuna hasn't done clean programme and broken world record with 'The Lark Ascending', but it will remain forever as one of the best programmes in figure skating history to her fan and to me.