The origins of Torvill and Dean’s Boléro routine
A 180-switch in the music’s tempo, led to the choice of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, for Olympic season.
The change of pace and tone saw the emergence of a mesmerising routine that featured a Romeo and Juliet-style storyline, complete with billowing floaty costumes worn by the pair, unusual for the time, with the music building to a pulsating crescendo and a tragic end.
The drama imbued in the routine came at a time when Crawford himself had also changed his typical role, rehearsing the haunting role of the masked Erik in The Phantom of the Opera.
Playing a disfigured musical genius who haunts the Paris Opera House, obsessed by the young soprano Christine, Crawford won multiple accolades for the heavyweight role, including an Olivier Award and Tony Award in his three-and-a-half-year run.
Working alongside Torvill and Dean and coach Calloway, perhaps it’s no surprise the quartet came up with the similarly powerful and sensual Boléro routine at this time.
Crawford helped the pair act out the skate, with Torvill confirming his role in an interview with local Nottingham magazine LeftLion in 2014: “Michael was wonderful to work with and he taught so much about expressing emotions while on the ice and putting on a performance, while moving at speed.”
“We worked with Michael from 1981,” revealed Dean, “and he helped us to create our 1984 Olympic routines. He was right there with our trainer when we were at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo and was a huge support to us.”
The commentator perfectly captured the drama of the history-making performance at the Zetra Olympic Hall in which 8,500 spectators, with 24 million people watching on British TV, saw the pair win Olympic gold.
“Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean from Great Britain have just delivered the most amazing free dance that’s ever been seen.
“Innovative moves never seen before in ice dance before this couple came along, the first couple to have a sustained theme. They’ve shown us before but now they’ve shown us perfection.”
The routine brought the house down, with Crawford leading the applause.
Torvill and Dean would turn professional post-Olympic Games but returned to competition in time to claim Olympic bronze in Lillehammer, Norway a decade later.
Since then, the pair have continued to skate professionally, with the final curtain call after 50 years of skating seeing them bow out this weekend.
But as they take to the ice for the final time together, there will no doubt be a nod to that man Crawford, now living in New Zealand, and the role he played from the wings of their icy stage.