Janet Lynn - Kumbaya

Topic: Movement - Dance
Ballet training entered figure skating regimes after Oleg Protopopov and Ludmila Belousova won the pairs competition in the 1964 Olympics. Protopopov’s mother was a dancer, and he apparently absorbed a dancer’s way of moving the way children learn to use their bodies when they are toddlers. He said he originally wanted to study music, but was rejected because he couldn’t detect differences in pitch and key. Instead, he enrolled in percussion classes and took up figure skating by chance. [1]

Peggy Fleming said their 1964 performance "had a great effect on me." She went on, "what I brought was the spirit of ballet more than the techniques of dance" to her performances. [2]

Superficially ballet and skating looked the same with arabesques, turns, jumps, and connecting steps, but they differ in how the movements were executed. A woman balanced on a turned out leg in a pointe shoe with the other raised in back was using her muscles differently from one moving forward on a skate with a weight attached to her back foot.

Despite the physiological differences, there were things skating and ballet shared like the use of the head in turning to avoid getting dizzy and the use of extensions to make leaps look higher. [3] Fleming worked with John Curry on the use of the arms and hands that extended lines and released tensions. [4]

Janet Lynn was an eleven-year-old with ambitious in 1964. She had rejected ballet when her parents enrolled her in a class for toddlers, [5] but was taking skating lessons when she was three. [6] Her coach, Slavka Kohout, added ballet and gymnastics to the schedule at her rink north of Chicago. [7] Buck Jerzy said Lynn "also took organ lessons to get a better feel for moving to the music while skating." [8]

In 1983, Lynn included "Kumbaya" in a medley of spirituals to accompany her technical program at the World Professional Championships. During the first three lines of the verse she glided around the rink building the energy to execute a maneuver at the beginning of "Oh, Lord." The first was a jump with a double turn. The other was a turning side-arabesque that morphed into a pirouette-like spin. [9]

Lynn’s arms were generally extended, not quite straight, and not quite curved like a ballerina’s. She made the transition from the side arabesque to the turn by extending both arms in front of her, then pulling them back across her chest in a pose associated with Giselle. [10]

The choice of spirituals was unusual in an event that leaned toward classical music. In her exhibition program she used the "Bluebird" variation from Act 3 of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty. [11] She had used Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun at the U. S. Figure Skating Championships in 1968. [12] Nijinsky had used the music for a modern ballet in 1912. [13]

By the time Lynn utilized the three spirituals she had retired from amateur competitions and left the Ice Follies to raise a family. She had become a Born-Again Christian after she placed third in the 1972 Olympics, [14] and later became a religious speaker. [15]

Others regretted her disappearance from the ice and conversion into a suburban housewife who scrubbed her own toilets. [16] Christine Brennan wrote that Brian Boitano, who began competing in the Olympics after Lynn retired,

"stopped her the last time he saw her, at the 1994 Nationals in Detroit. He always talks about hearing music, even elevator music and immediately picturing himself doing a routine on ice.

"‘Janet,’ he wanted to know, ‘when you hear music, do you still picture yourself skating to it?’

"‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Always’." [17]

Performers
Skating Soloist: Janet Lynn
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: unidentified
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
There were none

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: come by here [18]

Vocabulary
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: two-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: slow

Basic Structure: part two of three-part medley of spirituals that began with "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and ended with "Deep River"

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: on the first iteration, the chorus sang softly; on the second the piano played the statement and the chorus sang the refrain

Notes on Performance
Occasion: 1983 World Professional Championships ladies’ singles competition, technical program

Location: ice rink, Landover, Maryland

Clothing: white dress with long sleeves and short skirt; scoop neck and outer edges of sleeves covered with large beads. Her skates were white.

Notes on Audience
She won the women’s single’s competition. The audience booed when she got a mere 9.8 from one judge for the "Bluebird" variation; the other scores were all 9.9. [19]

Notes on Performers
Lynn’s family were members of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chicago. [20] She became interested in religion during her two years of confirmation classes that include a week in the summer at Camp Augustana in Wisconsin. [21] In high school she joined Young Life. [22]

While still in high school she competed in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics. She won the United States Figure Skating championship from 1969 to 1973. [23] Her coach said, "she had an animal grace. She had a sense of balance that was incredible, something innate that cannot be taught." [24]

It was after she fell during her free-skating program in 1972 that she heard about speaking in tongues from a high school friend. [25] Soon after, she and another friend sought the Holy Spirit. [26]

William Johnson talked to after she won her last national championship the next year. When asked how she had done so well, she said "I had an inner peace last night, and I always skate very well when I have that."

They talked more about her relationship with God. She said she was bored and depressed after losing the Olympics and considered quitting. She prayed, and continued for His sake. She continued:

"‘But it is so hard and I am more depressed than I was before. I’m O.K. when I trust in God, but otherwise not. I used to be O.K. on my own, but now I have to have God and faith or I can’t make it. It’s so hard now....’

"The interviewer pauses then asks hesitantly, ‘Is God a good skater?’

"The radiant smile flashes once again and Janet says with a giggle, ‘He must be. That sure wasn’t me skating last night’." [27]

Availability
YouTube: uploaded by GoldenAgeofFS on 21 November 2014

End Notes
1. Gererd Zelensky interview with Oleg Protopopov and Ludmila Belousova published by Yunost. Reprinted by Ryan Stevens. "The Legacy Of Ludmila." Skate Guard website. 29 September 2017.

2. Peggy Fleming. The Long Program. With Peter Kaminsky. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999. 11. Fleming won the gold medal in figure skating in the 1968 Olympics; she competed in the 1964 one.

3. Oleg Protopopov remembered, "When I was a boy, my mother brought me an American magazine with Dick Button on the cover. He was doing a split jump, and his position was so extended, his toes were pointed…my mother said, ‘one day you must skate better than him’. It never happened." (Christie Sausa. "Protopopovs, Dick Button Reunite at Tribute." Adirondack Almanack. 6 September 2011.

4. Fleming. 11. Curry wanted to study ballet when he was child, but took up skating when his father refused to let him dance. He won the Olympics single men’s figure skating event in 1976.

5. Janet Lynn. Peace + Love. With Dean Merrill. Carol Stream: Creation House, 1973. Reprinted by New York: Dell Publishing, 1976. 14.

6. Lynn. 15.

7. Allison. Interview with Slavka Kohout. Transcribed by Fiona Mcquarrie. Manley Woman website. 26 July 2009.

8. Buck Jerzy. "Janet Lynn Proved Sacrifices Spell Success." Polish Sports Hall of Fame website.

9. I don’t follow skating, and don’t know the technical terms for the maneuvers. I would be grateful to anyone who enlightens me.

10. Giselle was introduced by the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris in 1841. (Wikipedia. "Giselle.")

11. "Janet Lynn - Bluebird Variation." Video from 1983 uploaded to YouTube by GoldenAgeofFS on 21 November 2014.

12. Lynn. 59. A video from 1983 was uploaded to YouTube by GoldenAgeofFS on 21 November 2014. ("Janet Lynn - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.")

13. Wikipedia. "Afternoon of a Faun (Nijinsky)." It was done for the Ballets Russes.
14. Lynn. 118-119.
15. Wikipedia. "Janet Lynn."

16. Christine Brennan. Inside Edge. New York: Scribner, 1966. "Go Out and Tell a Story" chapter reprinted by Nick Pilgrim. Aussie Skates website. 2003.

17. Brennan.

18. The commentator was talking during this section and I may have misunderstood the words.

19. YouTube, Bluebird.
20. Lynn. 17.

21. Lynn. 51-52. Her autobiography was written by the editor of a religious publishing house who focused on her relationship with Christ; he rarely mentioned other aspects of her childhood and adolescence.

22. Lynn. 88. Young Life was mentioned in the post for 17 December 2017.
23. Wikipedia. "Janet Lynn."

24. Slavka Kohout. Quoted by William Johnson. "This Is It, for Heaven’s Sake." Sports Illustrated. 5 March 1973.

25. Lynn. 114.
26. Lynn. 118-119.
27. Johnson.