Paradise Lost – and Regained. On Tatsuki Machida’s Eden

I shall not wholly die

Horace, Odes III:30

To Kirsi, a fellow Tatsuki enjoyer — with deep gratitude

Paradise Lost: The End

On the 28th of December 2014, Tatsuki Machida stepped onto the Nagano ice as a selected Worlds-2015 team member for Japan, only to announce his abrupt retirement from competitive skating, much to the utter shock of the fully packed arena and multiple mass media outlets. There would be no Worlds for him that season. There would be no other competitions for him from that moment on. He was free. The next day, at the post-championship “Medalist on Ice” Gala, he skated his “East of Eden: A Celebration”: a fitting swan song and farewell to — and, indeed, a celebration of — his competitive years: with all their highs and lows, struggles and joys. It was the end of an era — and a bitter end, for that matter.

As a late bloomer, Tatsuki Machida must have felt that some of his best years had slipped by while he was desperately searching for his voice and confidence. And even when the peak had finally been reached, there was always something else: a mere 1.68 points separated him and the 2014 Olympic podium; even more frustratingly, a microscopic 0.33 of a point cost him his first world championship title. This was just a few months before his shocking announcement. He was always one little stumble away from reaching the top — in fact, in a cruel twist of irony, he stumbled in an otherwise perfect gala performance, too.

The news sent shock waves across mass media outlets. No one expected this. Very few people had been informed about his decision when he took the microphone into his hands on that fateful day: the Japan Skating Federation did not know; his teammates did not know; his fans did not know. His mother confessed at a later point that he had been still considering his participation at the 2015 Worlds during the earlier stages of the season. And yet on that day, he decided to give up and pursue a different path.

It looked as if, disappointed with the outcome of the 2014-15 All-Japan Nationals, he banished and exiled himself from the world of competitive skating:

And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Genesis 4:16

To this day, the MOI-14 “East of Eden” skate stands as a powerful reminder of that self-imposed exile and the bitter end of Tatsuki’s career: his Paradise Lost.

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This is by no means a full story, of course. The “East of Eden” of MOI-14 was a modified gala version of a short program from the previous season, one that was closely tied to all the vicissitudes of the turbulent 2013-14 Olympic year, the peak of Tatsuki’s career. This competitive version, in turn, is closely tied in the minds of many to one specific event: the 2014 World Championship in Saitama, Japan. The moment of his glorious rise — and painful loss.

What follows is my modest attempt to celebrate both programs and, more generally, Tatsuki’s skating legacy. In the following two sections of the text, I focus first mostly on one program and then mostly on the other, although the switch is never straightforward and complete: the first section is more about structure, which is easier to follow in the competitive version of “Eden,” whereas the second examines several links between Tatsuki’s and Michelle Kwan’s interpretations of the same music, which are much more widespread in the gala version. Overall, the two sections are meant to complement each other, hopefully leading to a fuller understanding of the program that was so central to the later stage of Tatsuki Machida’s career, up to its very end.

If this got you curious, come on in and enjoy the walk!

I. Mapping the Paradise

First things first, we need a map.

It will save us a lot of time and will help get to the point much faster if we first correctly read the underlying musical structure upon which the competitive program rests: the music (Lee Holdridge’s soundtrack to the 1981 American TV miniseries based on John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden”) maps the space, which the choreography (created by Phillip Mills) follows and decorates with all its usual elements: jumps, spins, steps, turns, and other moves.

In Tatsuki’s case, the two main sections of the soundtrack alternate with each other several times (unlike some other “East of Eden” programs where such alternation occurs only once), leading to the following 5-part structure:

• Section A introduces the main theme of the program (worth noting that this section is twice as long in the original soundtrack — only the second half of the original section A was used in the program due to the time limit imposed by the ISU);

• Contrasting section B is built on a new, albeit related, material, and is only about half as long as the preceding section;

• Then there is a full repetition of the main theme that builds up the tension with its increased dynamics and prefigures the climax of the entire piece which is yet to come;

• Then a repetition of the contrasting section, extended with one extra bar at the end which, much in the same way as it happens in final repetitions of refrain in some pop songs, transposes the music up, thus adding to the build-up and preparing the main climax;

• Finally, the second repetition of the opening section in the new key; the beginning of this section coincides with the climax of the entire soundtrack.

This structural framework prepares a solid foundation and fertile soil for all choreographic creativity and flow: whatever happens in the program and however far the creative imagination wanders, the main boundaries outlined by the musical material are never breached or trespassed. Quite on the contrary, they are constantly reinforced and emphasised by the disposition of the biggest and most important figure skating elements: jumps and spins.

Let’s start with the jumps.

There are three jumping passes in the program: 

• the 4T-3T combination (the hardest of the three) arrives just as the first section of the music is about to end, thus accentuating the first important boundary of the 5-part structure;

• next comes 3A near the beginning of the third section, which is the first repetition of the main theme A;

• with the final jumping pass (3Lz) coinciding with the build-up and transposition at the end of the fourth section, just before the music reaches its climax.

Out of the three jumping passes, two are located at important junctures: the opening combination at the end of the first section and the final jump at the end of the fourth. Only 3A may initially look like an outlier. However, even this jump becomes much more relevant from a structural viewpoint once we switch to the gala version of the same program mentioned at the beginning of our journey: here, in the absence of some of the competitive restrictions, there is little doubt as to what was the original idea behind this jump: to accentuate one of this program’s main boundaries between the 2nd and the 3rd sections.

The only other structural boundaries not covered by jumps are that between the 3rd and 4th sections of the program and the end of the last 5th section. Those are inhabited by two of the three spins.

Clearly, the disposition of jumps and spins closely follows the underlying musical structure, highlighting all its breaks and junctures and helping to separate — visually — one section of the program from the other. Within those sections, choreography adds more details and nuances — more hidden little paths that I leave to a curious reader to explore on their own — but the main boundaries are always respected and carefully preserved.

II. East of Michelle

The second season Tatsuki wanted to skate to “East of Eden” and I asked him why.  He told me he loved and revered Michelle Kwan. I decided that Tatsuki Machida’s “East of Eden” would be a tribute to Michelle Kwan, who was also previously one of my students.

Phillip Mills — source

What happens in between all the big elements that we have explored, beyond the rigid structural grid? These gaps are filled with creative transitions that uncover a completely different side of Tatsuki’s program with its multiple important references to Michelle Kwan’s iconic interpretation of the same music.

One element that has yet been unexplored holds a key to this other side: the beginning of Tatsuki’s step sequence which is set against the climactic final reiteration of the main theme (at the beginning of the final ‘A’ section).

Looking closer at how Tatsuki and Michelle interpret the same climactic section, one detail immediately attracts our attention. This detail is what is known as the “split falling leaf” — a half-revolution jump with a split midway in the air — the element that Michelle was particularly famous for. In Tatsuki’s case, the falling leaf is emphatically accentuated as it marks the beginning of the step sequence and the apex of the entire program. This reference is nearly impossible to miss.

Other references are harder to find as they are more subdued. Apart from the falling leaf, Michelle was famous for her inimitable spirals — ‘inimitable’ in the literal sense, as it would be practically impossible to copy those by any male or female skater. Jumps and spins are different too, and differently located within the same structure. This leaves ‘quieter’ transitions and body positions that do not immediately stand out from the rest. Of those, at least two positions are worth noting, as they reappear fairly frequently throughout Tatsuki’s gala version of “Eden”.

One can be described as skating on a slightly bent leg (forwards or backward, does not matter), with the free leg extended in front of the skater, as here:

The other shared move includes pivoting on one leg with the upper body bent to the opposite side, which creates a slight yet noticeable imbalance between the lower and upper portions of the body:

Those latter references may seem less significant for the overall structure of Tatsuki Machida’s program (they are certainly less pronounced than the falling leaf), yet they reveal a shared vocabulary of movement, which is perhaps even more indicative of the close relationships between the two programs than the most obvious and ‘loud’ citation at the beginning of Tatsuki’s step sequence.

To put it differently, these two programs do not just randomly intersect once or twice — they speak the same choreographic language. For Tatsuki’s program, this language was devised by Phillip Mills who had an opportunity to work with Michelle Kwan in the mid-1990s, when Lori Nichol — the creator of Michelle’s “East of Eden” — was having her baby.

This is yet another link in the long chain that ties together the two skaters and their programs.

Paradise Regained: The Beginning

It is the 26th of March 2014 and we are at the Saitama Super Arena. Tatsuki Machida’s “East of Eden” ends. With his final gesture, the skater raises the audience to their feet. This is it. This is the dream that every skater dreams.

In the overwhelming cacophony of colors and screams, before the emotions and physical exhaustion started to kick in — in that blissful moment of unconsciousness before coming to his senses — what were Tatsuki Machida’s thoughts? What were his feelings?

Did he think of scores and places? Did he sense and enjoy the grandeur of the moment? Did he feel that he had accomplished something? Did he lose the sense of time and space, or was he still aware of his surroundings? Did he know, or could he at least guess, that he had just won the short program at the 2014 World Championships in Saitama? We will probably never know.

At that specific moment in time, there had been no pain as yet of losing the world championship title by a mere 0.33 of a point. There had been no disappointment, no frustration, and no retirement thoughts. It must have felt like pure bliss, a dream come true. It must have felt like Paradise regained and re-conquered: one that had been so close yet always unattainable on so many past occasions.

Six months before his shocking announcement, Tatsuki Machida had already found his Eden — and opened it for all those who follow figure skating and enjoy the beauty of this sport. This is, I believe, the true moral of the story that this program tells: figure skating cannot be reduced to medals and titles. Even when everything seems lost and doomed, a skate like this by its sheer beauty will reopen the gates once again and return the keys from the garden of Eden.

“East of Eden” is the central altarpiece of Tatsuki’s competitive career, one surrounded by many other masterpieces. The appreciation of this unique legacy — of this skater’s personal Eden — can never end. It begins only now.