Tessa Virtue says taking on dance without skates is 'terrifying' and 'invigorating'

For most of her life, Tessa Virtue has built a career on control.

On the ice, she learned to find the precise balance point on a blade, trust a partner implicitly and make even the most difficult movements look effortless.

With Scott Moir, she transformed ice dance into storytelling built on speed, precision, trust and emotion. Together, they won three Olympic gold medals, three world titles and a permanent place in Canadian sports history.

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Now, Virtue is being asked to do something that runs against much of what made her an elite athlete: lose her balance, embrace uncertainty and perform alone.

Her new contemporary dance solo, choreographed by Alyssa Martin, premieres Oct. 15 at the Fall for Dance North Festival in Toronto, where Martin is the artist-in-residence. It is Virtue's first major performance on a stage rather than in a rink — and a return to the art form she first loved.

Virtue says she feels excited and honoured to be asked to participate, but the opportunity has also brought mixed emotions.

"It feels very much like returning to something and also utterly terrifying, but I think that's what's making this feel kind of electrifying and invigorating," she told CBC News.

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Dance was Virtue's first love. She began at three, and dance studios became places of comfort whenever skating took her away from home — first at 13, then again when she moved to Michigan at 15.

But returning to dance has not meant simply transferring the skills she developed as an ice dancer onto a stage. Virtue says the two