‘Torvill & Dean’: Another Thaw in Cold War : Ice-Skating: British couple join forces with a Moscow-based company in their show at Universal Amphitheatre.

It’s multinational politics on ice as British ice skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean perform “Torvill & Dean and the Russian Allstars” at the Universal Amphitheatre through Sunday.

Typical of Torvill and Dean’s unconventional programming is their solo number called “Missing,” which Dean described as “the oppression of those who are missing, who just disappeared without a trace, and of the people--brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, others--who are looking for them, who have no redress and just have to accept that their loved ones are missing.”

“We see images in front of us, of people disappearing, and we’re shocked by them,” Torvill, 32, added. “They’re images of desperation.”

At opening night Tuesday, the political number got a big hand from the audience, which filled about two-thirds of the Amphitheatre. In the two-hour production, the couple also perform six other solo numbers--including “Bolero,” which won them a string of perfect scores at the 1984 Winter Olympics at Sarajevo and got a standing ovation, the vaudeville-influenced “Hatrick” in which they pass derbies back and forth over most of their bodies, and an Astaire/Rogers duet. They also join forces with 20 members of a Moscow-based company of Soviet skating champions called the Russian Allstars, and give the Soviets, led by former European champion Yuri Ovchinikov, the spotlight for selections ranging from Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” to a Phil Collins medley.

Choreographed primarily by Dean and renowned Soviet coach Tatyana Tarasova--who created the Allstars company in 1983 with Ovchinikov--the show premiered in Moscow in August, 1988. The ensemble then spent six months touring Australia and New Zealand and another three in England, and is now in the last two weeks of a four-month, 60-city North American tour presented by Ice Capades.

At the Laurel Plaza Ice Capades Chalet in North Hollywood, where the ensemble was rehearsing last week, Dean, 31, said: “The producers thought it was good because of the climate of glasnost, and the easing of the Cold War, which no longer exists. So you could view the show on a number of fronts.”

The appellation “The Russian Allstars,” incidentally, was not adopted for easy identification with non-Soviet audiences. “That’s the translation of their company name,” Torvill said. “We wanted them to change it--we said, ‘In the Western world, that sounds like a football team.’ But that’s the way they’re known in their country, and they were adamant.”

The working relationship between the two factions proceeded more smoothly, the dancers said, though there were inevitable adjustments. “They were surprised at how long we rehearse, and I think it took them a little while to get used to our system of working and the way Chris wanted things done as the choreographer,” Torvill noted. “They weren’t used to working in groups of five and six.”

There were also stylistic differences with which to contend. “It was hard for a little while to soften them out, make their skating smoother,” Dean recalled. “We were trying to capture the essence of something, as opposed to the technical feat--we had to spend a lot of time on detail. For the finale (a Hollywood tribute set to music by Gershwin and Berlin), the feeling we wanted was of very relaxed movements, and that was also foreign to them: They didn’t know who Fred Astaire was. But eventually we showed them videotapes, and they got it.”

As for choreographer Tarasova, Dean said wryly, “We’ve had our ups and downs. It’s quite healthy to have a few clashes. At the end of the day, we’re all aiming for the same thing, a good show.”

Tarasova on this day was sidelined by a massive toothache, but colleague Ovchinikov, 39, who doubles as the Allstars’ director and lead skater, said through an interpreter that the two choreographers “had found a common language. (The Allstars) have gotten a lot of interesting work from Jayne and Chris, because they are very interesting skaters and professionals on a high level.”

Over the course of the tour, the company has drawn closer personally as well as professionally, Torvill and Dean said. “The kids have begun to trust us more--they’d been brought up in a society where no one trusts anyone, least of all a foreigner,” Torvill observed. “We can sit down and talk to them about political things--our country, their country. They’re pretty open about things. They’re as interested in what’s happening in the world now as we are. They’re excited about (the dramatic events of the past few weeks), find them positive steps.”