Tracing the Caller

Tracing the Caller is a collaborative choreographic figure skating project that weaves together feminist critique, queer theory, and the history of gendered expression on ice.

Tracing the Caller is the first choreographic skating piece in a planned multi-year collective engagement with the histories and practices of gendered expression in figure skating. Through embodied practice and creative choreographic interventions, the project engages with foundational moments, performance pieces, and canonic texts to destabilize gender normativity in skating. It brings queer and feminist theory and praxis to the ice, drawing on the political potential within figure skating history to imagine alternative gendered practices.

Led by Tina Chen, Kaitlyn Weaver, and Gabriella Papadakis — with filmmaker Noam Gonick and researcher David Churchill — the project connects creative practice with scholarly inquiry. It integrates feminist histories, embodiment, and cultural politics with ongoing work to advance equity, gender diversity, anti-racism, and inclusion in figure skating through education, policy, and choreography.

Using early figure skating history, particularly the writings of British champion E.F. Benson (Guide to English Figure Skating, 1908), Tracing the Caller revisits the power dynamics of the “caller” role in pair skating. Through a queer theory lens, the work explores dominance and submission, fluidity of roles, and queer and same-sex friendship as the basis for partnership.

Creative outputs will include short choreographic pieces, longer performances, and reconstructions of early skating patterns, accompanied by written and artistic reflections from each collaborator.