Skating Extravaganza Slips on Salesmanship

“Bladerunners With Torvill and Dean” begins boldly with the bottom line of ice dancing: the skate. But soon, very soon, this hourlong “Great Performances” telecast (scheduled for 8 tonight on KCET and KPBS, 8:30 on KVCR) becomes a talk-laden sales pitch for its stars, continually interrupting and narrating performance footage as if the artistry of Torvill and Dean can’t speak for itself.

For example, we hear New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff comparing Torvill and Dean to George Balanchine and Fred Astaire virtually in the same breath--and this comes during “Hat Trick,” one of their most playful and unpretentious pieces.

Since these Olympic and World Amateur Champions were loved by a vast international television audience seven years before PBS and the BBC got around to this co-production, much of the praise proves as unnecessary as it is intrusive.

More useful: Jayne T. and Christopher D. speaking about the evolution of their partnership and the creation of some of their most celebrated choreographies.

Footage of the duo working with French Amateur champions Paul and Isabelle Duchesnay, and with the Soviet team Annenko and Stretensky, supplies insights about artistic intentions and working methods but allows little time to appreciate the results. Indeed, director Bob Portway permits only one Torvill and Dean piece to be seen complete: the six-minute “Ice Works,” choreographed for TV to a commissioned score by Andy Sheppard.

Here we see them at a distance materializing out of the mist and then swooping to and from a luminous golden backdrop. Their physical rapport again seems instinctual and deeply communicative, with his partnering skill and her trust in it often miraculous. However, the soft-focus lushness of the piece looks awfully backdated compared to some of the sharp-edged innovations in earlier works.

The score’s use of documentary skating sounds might have supplied rhythmic bite and kept Torvill and Dean from descending into marshmallow lyricism. However, this concept, too, has been softened in the mix to merely a decorative texture. Torvill and Dean have indeed transformed ice dancing, but “Ice Works” finds them dangerously near Sonja Henie turf.