"Electricity On Ice"
By
Linda Barnard
"Modern
Woman" magazine, special skating issue,
Jan. '97 ~ pg. 10
They're sometimes compared to the legendary Torvill and Dean because of their revolutionary approach to ice dancing. But the style they have developed in just six years together-bold, daring, physically grueling, totally electrifying-is uniquely theirs.
It is called The Crusher-so named of what used to happen to five-foot-four, 114-pound Shae-Lynn Bourne whenever she and partner Victor Kraatz performed it. It requires her to support much of Kraatz's 155 muscular pounds along her side as the pair lean over, almost parallel to the ice and so low they're nearly touching it. It's a trademark move, one of several the Canadian ice dancing champions use to leave spectators slack-jawed and judges awed.
"When we first started making it up, I always had sore ribs," says 21-year-old Bourne with a grin as she explains how the move got its name. The Crusher is emblematic of the revolutionary style of skating, called hydro-blading, that makes their ice dancing unique-a strong-edged, athletic style that seems destined to propel the Canadian pair to legendary heights.
Sure, The Crusher hurt at first. So do most of the elements of hydro-blading, a style of skating that, although not invented by Bourne and Kraatz, has certainly been perfected by them. It's a style in which deep, strong edges are used to lead into, and out of, dramatic, close-to-the-ice moves that seemingly defy the laws of physics, surely causing leg muscles to cry out in agony. But as the 25-year-old German-born Kraatz explains, in that matter-of-fact way elite athletes talk about their superior bodies, it's all a matter of training and conditioning.
They're used to pushing themselves to the limit, these two. In 1992, despite a fractured skull, Bourne went ahead to compete in the Canadian Figure Skating Championships. They won the junior dance event. Then, 10 days before the Sun Life Skate Canada International meet in 1995, Kraatz's skate blade slashed through Bourne's knee. It took 17 stitches to close the wound. They still won gold. "When you work so hard to get to that point, you don't want to give it up," Bourne says. "It's like Silken Laumann," Kraatz adds. "She still went rowing after her accident, and Elvis Stojko skated after he hurt his ankle at the nationals. That's what sport is about."
Bourne and Kraatz are the new breed. Their style consistently breaks with ice dance traditions, where Strauss waltzes and Mantovani are the norm. Unlike pairs figure skating, with its dramatic lifts and throws and use of separate skating, ice dancing rules prohibit most of the flash. In ice dancing, partners are required literally to dance-to move as one, breaking apart only to change positions. No lifts over the man's shoulder are permitted; no jumps; no individual moves.
But this team, while following the rules of the sport, are thrilling fans with their daring. At last year's World championships, they chose Relax, from Frankie Goes To Hollywood, for their free dance routine. Because of the changes they have brought to the sport through their choice of music and, most important, the evolution of hydroblading, Bourne and Kraatz are often compared to '80s superstar skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, whose remarkable, sensual style revolutionized ice dance.
"Torvill and Dean were probably among the few skaters who did change the sport, and being linked to them in that way is great for us," Kraatz says, when asked how he feels about being compared to the British pair. "But we never copy their moves. We want to be just as innovative as they were."
"I think what people mean when they refer to us as Torvill and Dean is the freshness, and being different from everyone else," Bourne suggests. "They always stood out. They were in a place of their own."
The place we're in on this particular October evening is a decidedly unglamorous battered dining hall in Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. On the road, in Elvis Stojko's Tour of Champions, they have found time between a rehearsal and a pasta dinner ("No garlic before you ice dance," Kraatz says with a chuckle) to talk to Modern Woman.
Both individually and joined in dance, they are stunningly attractive. He has the blonde, angular looks of a matinee idol from bygone era, complete with blinding smile and easy charm. She is lithe perfection, strawberry blonde with a dusting of freckles, huge amber eyes tipped at the corners like a cat's. As they practice on the ice, they go through the complex moves with ease, stopping occasionally to talk over a sequence as they glide around the rink, hands on hips, heads close. They're casually dressed to work out, Kraatz in black pants and a white T-shirt, Bourne wearing an ecru body stocking made of patterned lycra that makes it look as if her hard body is carved in marble. They smile at each other frequently as they skate, eyes locked in the style that forms one of the cornerstones of dance. At times, it seems as if an invisible thread built by their gaze is holding them together, and then, suddenly, they drop parallel to the ice, bodies molded, held there in a gravity-defying blend of muscle and sinew and will.
Bourne and Kraatz have been skating together just six years, a relationship that is considered still in its infancy in the ice-dance world. Yet this pair has moved up with almost unheard-of speed, climbing a ladder ruled by hierarchy to fill spots traditionally vacated only when the top skaters turn pro, or face disaster.
They began their careers together when Bourne was 15, and Kraatz, who had tried out a succession of female skaters in his search for a partner, met her in Montreal. They clicked instantly. "It just felt good right away," Kraatz says, recalling that Bourne impressed him with her physical strength and willingness to try new things. They marked their new partnership by winning the Canadian junior national title several months later. The following year, they captured the senior title, which sent them to the World Figure Skating Championships. There, they came in 14th, followed by a 10th place showing at the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994. Last year, they captured the bronze at the Worlds, the first Canadian medal since 1988. Small wonder they're touted as favourites to win gold at the Nagano Winter Olympics in Japan next year.
Some athletes would find the pressure of a nation's high hopes unbearable, but not Bourne and Kraatz. They want to win more than anybody.
"You can't put pressure on yourself about what other people expect," Bourne says, and Kraatz is in total agreement. "We don't skate for what people want-we skated from the beginning because we love it and it's our goal to be Olympic champions," he says, adding that it's about setting goals, calling on "the eye of the tiger" -a fierce competitiveness, the desire and the drive to go all the way. "Sometimes you have to set aside certain things that might be important to other people."
Things like friendships, family, hobbies and home. They train in Lake Placid, far away from Kraatz's mother in Vancouver and Bourne's family in Chatham, Ontario. And while Bourne has a boyfriend, British skating champion Steven Cousins, Kraatz has put even thoughts of a relationship on hold until after Nagano.
For now, they're focusing on reinventing themselves, adding another layer to their four-minute program. This time, it will be blindingly fast footwork. I see some hints of it in rehearsal. Their skates are a blur. But Bourne says they prefer to keep their music and routine under wraps until they compete. "We want it to be a shocker," she says, with the kind of sly smile that makes it clear it will be all of that, and more.
They have hinted that after Nagano, they may turn professional, anticipating a long career before they hang up their skates. For Bourne and Kraatz, to do anything else would be unthinkable.
"There is a saying, 'You hear the cry of the warrior long after you have fought the battle,'" Kraatz says. "If you love what you are doing, nobody can take it away from you, not even after you step of the ice."