Voguing has officially entered the ice rink, and choreographer Bieel Moraes is making sure it arrives with respect, intention, and community at the center.
It’s Olympic season, and ice dancing is taking center stage. For anyone who cannot get enough, Netflix’s new documentary Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing offers a behind-the-scenes look at the road to the 2026 Winter Games. Among the voices featured is Moraes, who has been voguing for more than 13 years and was recruited to help choreograph a groundbreaking routine for Team France.
The program, performed by Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, blends ballroom arms control with Olympic-level skating. It has resurfaced on social media in recent months, garnering millions of views and sparking conversation about innovation, culture, and representation in the beloved sport.
Gayety spoke with Moraes about the experience and how voguing made its way to the Olympic stage.
From Instagram to the Olympics
The collaboration began how most do nowadays, through Instagram.
“Guillaume contacted me. He saw that I was giving online classes, I think two years ago,” Moraes said. “So we started to do some private classes… and after that, he came back to me and said, ‘Okay, we’re going to the Olympics and we want you to choreograph for this duo.’”
Despite teaching voguing around the world, Moraes had never worked in ice dance before.
“Never. Never. I don’t skate. It’s so hard. I tried,” he said.
Bringing ballroom to the rink meant determining how movement translates when athletes glide, twirl, and rely heavily on their legs.
“Arm control is a really hard dance style, so they had a lot of training,” Moraes said. “The hardest part was connecting the ice with the movements, what they were doing with the legs and the arms together.”
A cultural moment beyond choreography
For Moraes, the routine represents more than a creative challenge.
“I never imagined voguing in ice dancing. So I think it’s nice to put Vogue in this place and put the ballroom community on that stage,” he said.
Voguing comes from the Black and Latine LGBTQ+ Ballroom scene in Harlem, New York City, where queer and trans people of color created the style as a form of expression, competition, and community. Developed at ballroom balls, the dance blends fashion poses, storytelling, and stylized arm movements. Bringing it onto Olympic ice introduces a global audience to a culture rooted in identity, resilience, and chosen family.
“In a world where there is so much homophobia and LGBTQ phobia, this is a style created by trans women,” Moraes said. “It’s nice to put this in a place as big as the Olympics and Netflix.”
Going viral and looking ahead
The online response to the routine has been a complete surprise.
“Oh my God, I didn’t expect it at all,” Moraes said. “There are now millions of people watching it on Instagram… I just see the good comments. People are like, ‘Oh my God, that’s so fab.’”
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As a teacher leading voguing classes in more than 25 countries, Moraes remains focused on keeping ballroom culture rooted in its origins. “My work as a teacher is to prepare them to be able to perform and enjoy that moment of walking in a ball,” he said.
And after seeing voguing thrive on the ice, he is already thinking about where voguing could go next.
“One thing I’ve been thinking about… is swimming teams that perform choreography,” Moraes said. “Doing lines together like that could be another level.”
Though we would love to see voguing take over Artistic Swimming, for now, Morael is still taking in the scale of this moment.
Currently, Team France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron hold the lead after the rhythm dance, with Team USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates right behind in second. The margin is tight, setting up a high-pressure final showdown. Everything now comes down to the free dance tomorrow, where technical precision, artistry, and execution will decide the podium and ultimately who walks away with Olympic gold.
