It’s been almost 12 years since a teenaged Jason Brown took the ice at the U.S. Championships in an emerald green and gold shirt, hair slicked back into a low ponytail. That season was his first on the senior circuit, and he was in third position after the short program. When the single-note intro of Bill Whelan’s “Riverdance,” began, Brown slowly and deliberately raised his arms. As he completed element after element, the music grew into the ecstatic celebration of Irish dance for which it’s best known, and the audience was on their feet well before his program was over.

That near-flawless performance won him the free skate portion of the competition, resulting in a second-place finish overall, and earned him a spot on the U.S. Olympic team for Sochi 2014. It also made him a viral sensation.

“I remember after I competed my free program, I got a text from my brother saying, ‘Oh my gosh, a video of your program already has 1,500 views.’” Brown said. “An hour later he calls, ‘It just hit 100,000 views.’ And then by the end of the day, it was like a million, and then 2 million, and then 3 million. Crazy at that time.”

By the time Brown performed the program at the Olympic Games a couple of months later, he already was known as the “Riverdance guy,” – an honorific that has followed him throughout his career. This season, Brown again will skate his Riverdance program – this time as a short program – a choice he calls both “full circle,” and a “thank you” to his fans who have followed him for so long.

At age 30, Brown has had a longevity as a figure skater not afforded to many. He’s won medals at just about every major event, from his 2014 Olympic team bronze, to his title as national champion, to standing on the podium at nearly a dozen Grand Prix events. He regularly is asked to perform in show tours around the world, and his expressive, artistic style somehow both harkens back to the performance skills of 90’s stars like Scott Hamilton, Paul Wylie and Kurt Browning, and pushes the sport forward into newer, more contemporary forms than the current jump-focused sport seems to allow.

Returning to Riverdance isn’t, Brown said, a retirement announcement. Twice after Olympic cycles he was sure he would quit, and twice he found himself returning to competitive ice. Nor is it an attempt to recreate a moment, to return to the bright-eyed teenager making his first mark on the sport. Brown called the ability to return to the piece 12 years later a "privilege and honor,” and this time around, he’s approaching the routine from a much more mature standpoint. 

Brown and his choreographer, Rohene Ward, who created the original (and most of Brown’s routines over the two decades they’ve worked together), wanted to make sure there would be certain easter eggs that fans would notice, allowing them to be, “in on the joke,” Brown said. But much of the program has been reworked to highlight Brown’s immense development into the artistic athlete he is today.

“I think as a short [program] it might even be more impactful than as a free [skate],” Ward said. “And I say that because his presence and his power is so much greater now than it was then.”

Revisiting the program allowed Ward to take stock not just of Brown’s evolution, but of the sport as well. Step sequences and a range of requirements now must be far more complex. They’re longer, harder; and to gain every component score possible, it meant reworking the program so the iconic “Irish dance” choreography even more deeply is encoded into the routine.

When Brown’s head coach, Tracy Wilson, saw the reworked version, she remembers telling him – aware of the irony – that it felt like a type of skating he’d never done before. 

“People love his fluidity,” Wilson said. “His movements are big and expansive, but when you're getting into the fast, quick feet, you have to totally narrow down the movement. It’s an opportunity to play with his skill set and capacity for syncopation and rhythm.”

Wilson sees the rhythm of the piece as being a doorway to the audience – the heart of why anyone watching connects so well to what Brown delivered.

“This is a piece of music that no matter where I go, anywhere in the world, people will share some story about what it's meant to them, or how it got them into skating, or just their memory of that program,” Brown said. Indeed, there were times he felt he couldn’t escape it. No matter how much he improved or how many new programs he created, people kept wanting to talk about Riverdance. But over the years, it became clear just what a blessing the staying power of that moment had been. 

This is my way of just saying thank you. Thank you so much for all the love. Thank you for the support. Thank you for being with me through thick and thin.

While Riverdance is for the fans, Brown said his free skate this season – to a cover of “Say Something,” – is for him. So often, he felt limited by a sport focused on the required jump elements. And so often he felt unable to speak up, to advocate for himself. 

For several Olympic cycles now, quad jumps – in which athletes jump into the air and rotate at least four times before landing on one blade – have garnered the most points for competitors. While his triple jumps are consistent and executed with speed and power, Brown always has struggled to compete the range of quad jumps now expected in the men’s category.

“There are so many ways in our sport to excel, and there's so many paths that you can take to get the points needed,” he said. But the conversation kept coming back to what he lacked: the quad jumps. 

“I was told when I was a junior, ‘Without a triple axel, you're not going to ever make it to the junior Grand Prix Final.’ I won the junior Grand Prix Final without a triple axel. I was told, ‘You can't medal at junior worlds.’ I medaled at junior worlds. ‘You're never going to make an Olympic team without a quad.’ I did it,” he said.

Figure skating, a judged sport, assigns the most points for the six possible jumps, and the more rotations in the air, the more base value points are given. But step sequences and spins also are given points. And the difficulty and quality with which all the elements are performed, as well as the artistry of the choreography connecting them all, can garner athletes a significant boost for the final score. It’s in this that Brown excels. 

“I don't feel like it was ever taken seriously, and yet time and time again, I proved myself,” Brown said. “But at the same time, their comments chipped away at my self worth. They chipped away at the way that I viewed myself.”

Jacob Banks’ Mahogany Session cover of “Say Something,” felt personal to Brown – a way to speak the things he didn’t feel capable of as a younger athlete. Ward said it was the first time Brown had brought him music, versus the other way around. “It’s coming from within him now,” Ward said. “He doesn’t need direction any more, just support and guidance, and I said: 'Let’s collaborate and show them your best self.'”

Brown said as an artist, he didn’t want to share too much about the creative process of his free program, because he wants the audience to resonate with it themselves, to create their own interpretation of its meaning. This intense focus on connecting with the audience isn’t ubiquitous in the sport.

“I’ve watched many skaters through 30 years, and those skaters who have changed the sport, bring whatever they have to offer,” Wilson said. “I don’t know a more disciplined athlete than Jason. What he does is relevant. You see it with the audiences, and you see it with his teammates.”

When Brown first moved to train with Wilson and Brian Orser in 2018, several big names already were training at their school in Toronto. Two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu, Olympic silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva – all the skaters were used to being on the ice with the stars of the day. “But when Jason first came in, I remember when he started skating, everyone stopped to watch him,” Wilson said. It’s like that wherever they go. On practice ice at competitions, his competitors will stop training to ask for autographs or selfies. Time and time again she’ll look over at coaches beside her watching him and see tears in their eyes. 

“The respect he has is truly incredible,” she said. “He's such a unique skater, and such a special skater in that way.”

Brown hopes by staying in the sport as long as he has; by pushing the sport forward in terms of artistry and technical skating skills, he will be an example for future generations to bring whatever qualities they have to the sport. 

“It’s the Olympic mentality to strive to get that gold medal,” he said. “But every single person matters. There's no event without each person taking part.”

This season, Brown is aiming to make it to his third Olympic team. But he no longer feels his whole identity as a skater and his whole sense of worth is wrapped up in that metric. Both programs this season – which he appreciates may be his last – express this shift. His return to Riverdance will display not only a nostalgia, but a tangible reflection on his journey and how far he has come technically. His free program leans further than ever into his passion for contemporary dance and the ways in which it melds with figure skating as an art form. Wherever his love of skating takes him next, whether it’s more shows, continuing to compete, coaching, or joining advisory boards for the sport, his goal always will be to elevate and expand the sport as a whole.

“I'm just in such awe of the athletes that are pushing the sport technically, that are constantly raising the bar,” Brown said. “I'm going to respect myself, and continue to push the sport artistically, to push the sport when it comes to the quality. I just think it's so amazing that we can all, no matter what your strength is in the sport, push the sport forward and can inspire that next generation.”