Tessa Virtue Makes Her Professional Dance Debut

Canada’s two-time Olympic ice dance champion Tessa Virtue is performing her first professional dance debut without skates and without her longtime partner Scott Moir, dancemagazine.com reported this week.

The weekend performance at the Fall for Dance North festival in Toronto marks Virtue’s first time performing on stage as an adult away from the ice. The project pairs Virtue with choreographer Alyssa Martin, the festival’s 2026 artist in residence, who created a premiere titled The Unruly Heart for the event.

How the Collaboration Came Together

The partnership began earlier this year when Fall for Dance North festival director Robert Binet asked Martin to name her dream collaborator. Martin chose Virtue, a skater whose 2018 Olympic “Moulin Rouge” routine with Moir had heavily influenced Martin’s choreographic priorities. National Ballet of Canada principal Heather Ogden, a longtime friend of Virtue, helped connect Martin and Binet with the skater.

For Virtue, who retired from skating in 2019 and currently works as an executive advisor at Deloitte, the invitation arrived at an opportune moment. "Creative expression and collaboration was something that was missing from my life," Virtue said, noting that she lost her connection to the physical body and the creative arts after stepping into corporate work.

Rehearsals began in July, bringing Virtue back to ballet and contemporary dance—disciplines she practiced early in life before turning down a spot at the National Ballet School of Canada at age 9 to focus on ice dancing. With Moir, Virtue won gold at the 2010 Olympics as the youngest ice-dance team to take the title, followed by a silver medal in 2014 and a second gold in 2018.

Virtue Adjusts to Stage Movement for Debut

While Martin aims to showcase Virtue’s natural stage presence and break away from conventional framing of feminine movement, Virtue has adjusted to working directly with the floor rather than gliding across ice. In rehearsal, she described the process as close teamwork with Martin and Binet.

Moir will watch from the audience during the weekend run. “Scott will be in the audience,” Virtue said. “That will be maybe more pressure than anyone else watching, although I know he’s also probably the person that will be cheering the loudest.”

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