Breaking the Ice

Available for over a year

Join us as we glide through the centuries, skating on natural ice. Seán Williams traverses painting and poetry, cultural classical music and popular song since the “Northern Renaissance”. From 16th-century Flanders, across European Romanticism, and the ice discos of old: skating on frozen fields or waters was a sociable winter pastime for many during the “Little Ice Age” – and into the 20th century. Skaters’ Meadow in Cambridge was once the place to meet and try out new tricks, before seasonal outdoor rinks such as the one on the city’s Parker’s Piece were invented. Skating has mostly been sociable, and sometimes idealised as solitary. But the fun and sense of freedom can shatter if it does not thaw. Ice, like life, is transient – and stories of ice skating are those of life and death, or flirtation. They tell of the slippery side to the lives of men especially… Seán Williams hears from Beatrice Behlen, senior curator for fashion and decorative arts at the Museum of London, and hears a spontaneous choir of Cambridge students: James Bibey, Gina Stock, and Shriya Vishwanathan. Ice recordings in Sweden are thanks to John Savelid. The reader is Chris Jackson.