My name is Sophie, I’m from Sweden
and I’m here as a freestyle skater.
So a typical workday:
you wake up, you set on the coffee machine first thing, for sure.
And here we actually, we go by bus transportation
to a separate venue because we need the ice, right.
So we come here, we warm up, usually we do choreography on the ice.
But we also have a lot of other elements in this show.
We are learning stick manipulation, we have acting classes,
truly incorporating a lot more elements than just
normal figure skating in this.
And as freestyle skaters,
we also take the time to do a lot of acrobatics
off the ice before we go onto the ice.
After work, you sleep.
No, it’s very… For all athletes it’s very important
to always cool down, stretch, foot bath, those types of things.
I would say that’s definitely a process that comes
with how comfortable you get in the show.
For me, I can almost get like an outside-of-body experience
where I just see everything from outside of me,
and when you step off you barely remember what you just did.
As you get more comfortable,
that’s when like the beauty with this kicks in,
when you can actually like start getting your connection with the audience.
You get very secure in your role
and you can start putting more emotions in acting
and face expression and all of this into it.
And that’s when it all becomes so much fun.
In our act, I think what’s most impressive
is the variosity of skaters,
since freestyle skating has so many different elements
and different styles within it that we’re all very very different.
We all have our own approach to it,
which makes the number very intense and very very trick based.
To apply for a Cirque du Soleil job,
you need to show everything you’ve done.
For me, it was my gymnastics background.
All my dancing, skating, theatre,
like literally every little thing you have in your box,
you just need to show it out there.
I have a background in gymnastics.
I was doing gymnastics when I was a little kid
up until I was 13 years old, and then I transferred into figure skating.
My favourite element in gymnastics was the floor
because that’s when you got to be a little bit more creative
and you got to pick your music.
So I guess that’s kind of dragged me into the figure skating side of it.
And I competed in figure skating for five years,
then I got dragged into show business for the same reason.
I love the creativity of it and to be performing on stage.
After I stopped competing,
I traveled the world with cruise ships
and I performed in ice shows onboard
some of the biggest cruise ships in the world.
I believe the combination of my background
with an acrobatic background and the skating,
it’s a very good fit for me and I’m very happy to be here.
I would say the most challenging so far is patience, for sure.
Creation takes a lot patience, which is also the beauty of it.
Everything is created on the spot.
You get to be a part of how everything comes together,
all the different elements with both choreography
and music and lights and everything.
It's time to set some lights.
It’s truly like an amazing experience,
but it takes a lot of patience.
It’s a lot of puzzle pieces to put together.
And then to just constantly stay warm, stay in shape.
So coming here as a Cirque du Soleil artist,
I don’t think we can point out enough how well taken care we are.
We have a PMED who looks after us.
We have a lot of resources around and a lot of equipment
to help us stay in shape and to be very very safe.
And also how friendly everyone is and how well we all work together.
I think it’s important to find your own uniqueness.
For me example, that’s when I started moving my gymnastics over to the ice,
finding something that not a lot of other people are doing,
and also really think about the love you have for performance,
because that’s what we are all based on: our love for performing.
If I would describe our show AXEL in 3 words,
I would use futuristic, intense
and if you are able to read between the lines,
you can find a lot of hidden messages to relate to.