By Susan Reiter

Forget the sequins, cheesy music and revved-up human jumping beans you may associate with figure skating. Ice Theater of New York, long dedicated to developing skating as an art form through work with high-caliber choreographers, often from the dance world, regularly proves that there are far greater—and more expressive—options when blades meet the ice.

It was the superlative, groundbreaking British skater John Curry, a 1976 Olympic gold medallist, who first pushed skating into this territory. Elegant, expressive and visionary, he sought out major choreographers and boldly founded a skating troupe modeled on the lines of a repertory dance company. Shortly after his Olympic triumph, he fortuitously collaborated with the innovative Twyla Tharp. Her solo for Curry, After All, is a breathtakingly serene, fluent exploration of refined edgework and subtle musicality that highlighted his innate elegance and purity of line.

No one other than Curry (who died in 1994) has ever performed After All, which is set to three contrasting movements of an Albinoni’trumpet concerto. Now David Liu, an exemplary figure skater and dancer who has performed and choreographed with ITNY, is bringing it back to the ice. With a background that includes training at the School of American Ballet as well as competing for his native Taiwan at the Olympics, Liu performs and choreographs in both dance and skating troupes, and recently became ITNY’s co-artistic director, along with founder Moira North.

Liu recalls seeing Curry perform the solo—which, at seven minutes, is unusually extended for a skating piece. “I don’t think I really appreciated what he did. The apparent simplicity of his skating, but how difficult it really is, to be that musical, shifting your weight, and always infusing your body with a certain presence and energy.” In contrast to competition skating, “where you’re just worried about the next element and making sure you’re going really fast, [After All] is not about striving, it’s more about being and experiencing the beautiful aspects of skating: the flow and the edging and all those things.”

ITNY’s program also features new work by Douglas Webster and Peter DiFalco, in whose Spanish-themed work Liu performs a solo, as well as pull, a premiere for six  skaters choreographed by Liu.

Nov. 1-3, Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers, Pier 61 (at 23rd St.), 212-929-5811; 7, $25.