On Ice in Bryant Park, Christopher Robin Performs La Llorona

On a January evening at Bryant Park’s Bank of America Winter Village ice rink, the sound of a single voice carried across the ice. Christopher Robin, a multilingual singer and performer, sang La Llorona live in Spanish while figure skating, sustaining the performance without prerecorded tracks or theatrical effects.

The presentation was also live-streamed and released online on January 7th. Conceived as a live audiovisual performance rather than a music video, the work circulated widely after its release, reaching nearly half a million views online and appearing through the Bryant Park 24-hour livestream.

Bryant Park’s Winter Village is a familiar site for public skating and seasonal events, including appearances by figures such as Johnny Weir, Brian Boitano, and Nancy Kerrigan. Robin’s use of the rink departed from those traditions. There was no formal stage and no competitive framing; instead, the ice became a performance surface shaped entirely by voice, movement, and timing.

The project was produced by On Ice Perspectives, a figure skating cinematography company founded by former Team USA ice dancer Jordan Cowan, known for immersive work with elite skaters. Sponsored by Bank of America and the Bryant Park Corporation, the performance required months of rehearsal to integrate voice and movement as a single physical task.

Choreography was developed by Joe Johnson, with collaboration from Olympic and World silver medalists Kaitlyn Weaver and Jonathan Hunt as part of Robin’s broader performance project. Their involvement helped shape a structure in which skating functioned not as accompaniment but as extension — each turn and pause calibrated to breath, phrasing, and vocal line.

La Llorona, a song deeply rooted in Mexican tradition, was presented without narrative framing. Robin’s delivery was restrained, allowing the song’s emotional weight to emerge through control rather than excess. Singing while skating required continuous negotiation of balance, breath, and phrasing, making the technical demands of the performance visible without being theatricalized. The result positioned him as a rare quadruple threat: singing, skating, acting, and physical storytelling unfolding simultaneously in real time.

Robin’s work reflects a broader practice that moves across languages and formats. His career has included appearances on television and theatrical stages, as well as international touring productions, often performing in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. In New York, his public presence has also extended beyond traditional performance venues.

In 2025, he served as the principal singer at an anti-hate concert at Brooklyn Borough Hall, presented under Borough President Antonio Reynoso, performing a bilingual program centered on unity and civic engagement. He has also appeared at events with Moms Demand Action, using music as part of broader advocacy efforts.

What remained with viewers was not a sense of novelty, but of discipline. The performance demanded sustained vocal control, physical precision, and emotional focus, all maintained in real time. In a public space more accustomed to spectacle or distraction, Robin’s La Llorona asserted itself through rigor and concentration — a work defined not by excess, but by command.