And what of the Americans, progenitors of the sexual revolution, tight jeans and the simulated sexual rhythms of rock and roll? In ice dancing, they were frozen-stiff Victorians invited to an orgy. Unlike the Americans, skating legend Dick Button says, “The Russians looked as if they’d die if this passion wasn’t sated; every emotion was 110 percent.”
At this week’s world championships in Prague, the Americans will finally have a dancer who can ignite the ice. Naturally, he’s a Russian. Three years ago Gorsha Sur, then 23, defected to the West. Tired of his KGB minders, he bolted a touring company in New York. A few months later he was linked with Renee Roca, then 26, a former American champ looking for a partner who wanted to boogaloo. They worked out a program to Duke Ellington’s music. They managed even the look of lovers though, Roca says, they’re “just good friends.”
In January they won the U.S. championship. If he can expedite his citizenship papers, Prague will be mere prologue to next year’s Winter Olympics in Norway. “I am,” he says with charming idiomatic garble, “on nine cloud.” If he wins this week, where should he go? Of course: Land Disney.
