Figure skater Tessa Virtue to make off-ice dance debut at Fall for Dance North

Before Tessa Virtue ever put on a pair of skates, she was a dancer.

Virtue trained in ballet and contemporary before deciding instead to pursue figure skating at age seven, she said. The decision would set her on a path to becoming one half of the world's most decorated Olympic ice dancing duo.

This October, she's returning to her first love with an off-ice performance at Fall for Dance North, one of Canada's largest dance festivals.

"I've always been curious about what's possible beyond the boundaries that we set for ourselves and ultimately, this project challenged me to ask whether I could still be an artist without the very thing that defined my career," Virtue said by phone from Toronto.

"You know, the skates."

Virtue began her longtime skating partnership with Scott Moir in 1997, and they became household names after capturing Olympic gold in mixed ice dance at the 2010 Vancouver Games. The pair went on to win two more Olympic gold medals in Pyeongchang in 2018, as well as two silvers at the Sochi Games in 2014.

Though she never performed as a dancer on a stage, it remained part of her life, she said.

"In ice dance every year we thought about how to reinvent ourselves and our mission was to show versatility and different styles of expression, and in doing so we needed to enlist the help of experts off-ice," Virtue said.

They worked with Latin ballroom dancers, flamenco dancers, contemporary and hip-hop dancers and more, she recalled.

"Those sessions where Scott and I were dancing together off the ice really were the things that captivated my heart and soul in meaningful ways."

After Virtue and Moir retired from ice dance in 2019, Virtue moved into the world of business. She now works as an executive adviser at