OLYMPICS: Korean ice dancer pens story for Olympic routine

In the months before the Milano Cortina Olympics, South Korean ice dancer Hannah Lim wrote a short story that traces the emotional arc of her and her partner Ye Quan's free dance program, turning four minutes of movement into a sensory narrative.

Lim said she hoped to publish the piece before the Games, but time was running short as her manager was still checking it for grammar and spelling. She added that if people could read the story before watching the program, “it adds a little special something.”

"I put our skating into words and made us into characters," the 21-year-old said.

The story begins just before the free dance starts and follows the program beat by beat, transforming the skaters into characters set in a specific period.

Lim leans heavily into sensory detail — the smell of the air, the texture of the space, the emotions that surface as the relationship at the centre of the dance unfolds.

“When you walk in, how does the place make you feel, or what do you feel? What do you see? I tried to make it super descriptive so you can visualise it which is how I like to read books.”

Her dance partner was the first reader — and re-reader — receiving multiple versions, sometimes late at night. “It’s full of deep sensory detail,” Quan said. “She describes the smell, the air, the taste of stuff.”

Lim, an avid reader, said the project started as something personal. Inspired by American fantasy writer Sarah J. Maas and the story of a Korean family in Min Jin Lee's novel "Pachinko", she set out to merge the sensory details of a fantasy novel with a grounded, historical setting.

Their free program is set to "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber and "Adagio" by Lara Fabian.

As the Olympics approach, the pair say their goal remains less about placement and more about impact. They want audiences — many of whom may be watching figure skating for the first time — to feel the story they are trying to tell.

“If it’s our free (program), we want them to almost cry,” Lim said. “To feel everything.”

For those who read the story first, she hopes the experience becomes interactive — spotting moments from the page reflected on the ice, including the final image, when the character ends the story on her knees, mirroring the closing position of the program.

“I tried to match it up as best as I could but obviously writing is different from skating and we only skate for four minutes," she said, adding that if people tried to connect the two, that "would be exciting".

-Agnieszka Flak/Reuters