Isabelle Duchesnay

Isabelle Duchesnay (born December 18, 1963) is a retired ice dancer who represented France for most of her career. With her brother Paul Duchesnay, she is the 1991 World champion and the 1992 Olympic silver medalist.

Career

The Duchesnays started skating at an early age in Canada in pairs. Their first major success came at the 1982 Canadian Nationals, where they placed second in the junior competition. After a serious accident where Isabelle hit her head, they switched to ice dancing. Over time, the Duchesnays’ skating became more innovative and revolutionary with help from 1984 Olympic champion Christopher Dean. After Skate Canada criticized their skating, they decided to leave the Canadian team. Writer Ellyn Kestnbaum states, about Dean's choreography of the Duchesnays' programs: "Once Dean began to choreograph their programs in 1988, they introduced a whole new range of meanings to the issue of a man and woman skating together on the ice".

The Duchesnays' 1988 Winter Olympics programs were considered unusual. Their free dance, a jungle-inspired dance set to drums, was not well received by judges and they finished eighth overall. It was reported that the spectators in Calgary enjoyed their free skating program, which was described as a "comedic, melodramic tango", as well as "percussive" and "tribal", the judges' disparate scores, however, demonstrated that they did not know what to make of the program. They both wore blue-violet trousers and shirts; Isabelle Duchesnay wore her hair french-braided against her head, which emulated Paul Duchesnay's shorter curls. The choreography was focused on the theme of mirror images. As Kestnbaum states, "It was not always possible to distinguish which skater was Paul and which was Isabelle". Their program did not go well with the judges; according to Christopher Dean, who choreographed the program, they were told that they had no hope of winning the Worlds Championships with it because it was too contemporary and avant-garde. According to Kestnbaum, the Duchesnays' experimentation—which resisted the ballroom origins of ice dancing—influenced other ice dancers. The gender dynamics in their programs, due to their status as siblings, also resisted the "traditional clichés" of the sport.

According to Kestnbaum, their program's innovative symbols and movements were necessary because "if they fully enacted the erotic narratives of either ballroom or classical dance, they might raise the specter of incest".

The Duchesnays won their only World title at the 1991 Worlds in Munich, Germany. Determined to win the gold medal, they came to Munich with a new free dance program, entitled "Missing II," a sequel to their previous season's free dance, about the disappeared victims of Latin American dictatorships. As in 1990, Isabelle Duchesnay wore a tattered knee-length dress and a red leotard, while Paul Duchesnay wore dark trousers, a blue striped shirt with torn-up sleeves, and a red tie. Kestnbaum reports that although the partners wore costumes traditionally ascribed to their respective genders, "the choreography avoids narrativizing gender binarism". Kestnbaum also states that the fast section of their free dance, which occurred at the end of the program, "becomes a symbolic victory over oppression and an actual victory for the Duchesnays". Their free skate was set to music from West Side Story; they portrayed the characters Maria and Bernardo, brother and sister in the musical. Isabelle Duchesnay wears a diagonally cut purple dress, but her version of Maria seemed to be an active member of the Sharks, the street gang in West Side Story, unlike the character depicted in the original musical and film. As Kestnbaum states, "the Duchesnays erase sexual difference by making the girl one of the boys. Again masculinity is valorized as normative, but it is not the exclusive property of biological males".

Personal life Isabelle Duchesnay was born to a French mother and Canadian father. She married British ice dancer Christopher Dean in 1991;

Results (ice dance with Paul Duchesnay)

International Event 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 Olympics 8th 2nd Worlds 12th 9th 6th 3rd 2nd 1st Europeans 8th 5th 3rd 3rd 2nd Skate America 1st Nebelhorn 2nd National French 1st 1st 1st 1st Canadian 2nd J 4th 4th 3rd J = Junior

Amateur career programs

Reflections - Ocean Waves by George Winston Choreographed by Christopher Dean Tango

Blues1989-1990 Samba - Instrumental version of Late in the Evening by Paul Simon Choreographed by Christopher Dean Missing I - Dolencias and Sikuriades by Inti Illimani Choreographed by Christopher Dean Malaguena by Ernesto Lecuona