Warm Feelings Welcome on Skaters’ Tour

Last year at this time, the skaters of Stars on Ice were mourning the death of cast member Sergei Grinkov, who collapsed and died of a heart attack at age 28 in 1995 while rehearsing for the show’s opening night.

This season, troupe members--among them co-founder Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, Paul Wylie and Kurt Browning--are welcoming back Grinkov’s widow, Ekaterina “Katia” Gordeeva. It was Gordeeva and Grinkov who won the 1988 and 1994 Olympic gold medals in pairs competition and four world championships. She’s now skating solo.

Gordeeva, 25, skates two numbers that reflect upon her life during the past 14 months. One is a short solo within a group number about female friendship, to Stephen Sondheim’s “No One Is Alone,” an ode to the comfort she has found among fellow skaters and other supporters. The other, “Elegy,” is a piano solo composed and played by Sergei Rachmaninoff, which she skates in memory of her husband.

“Rachmaninoff was Russian, so it is comfortable to my soul,” the Moscow native said by phone recently from her hotel room in Seattle on a tour that stops Friday at the Pond in Anaheim. “I understand the music very well. The [meaning of the] number is that I’ve had a lot of thoughts and feelings over the past year, and I’m going through them. . . . It’s a conversation to myself.” Before a tribute to Grinkov held in February by Stars on Ice, Gordeeva had not skated singles since she was 11. She has since performed with the show in Canada, Hawaii, Japan and Korea.

“It’s definitely getting better, but still I have a lot to learn--technically, artistically, trying different styles, different choreography,” she said. “I’m learning from the group. . . . I can’t say this is the career that I was looking forward to all my life, but I’m very happy that Stars on Ice took me on the road.”

This year’s show also welcomes several new cast members, among them 1984 Olympic and world ice-dance champions Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean and Dean’s wife, 1990 world champion Jill Trenary. The innovative ice-dance team had headlined several of its own worldwide tours before accepting the invitation to join Stars on Ice.

“We had decided we weren’t going to do any more of our own shows,” Torvill, 39, said, by phone on the company bus en route to Seattle. “You get to a stage in life where you want to slow down and take more rest. We hadn’t toured most of America, so this was a nice opportunity.”

Agreed Dean, 38: “We can just think about skating, not ‘How is everybody feeling?’ or ‘How are the ticket sales?’ ”

It was also a good opportunity for the two to choreograph a group number, the playful first-act finale, “The Red Hat,” set to Scott Joplin ragtime music. Dean calls it “a new evolution” of the duo’s 1988 version, about teasing one-upmanship in trying to gain control of a derby.

With many of the cast members having skated together for years, Torvill and Dean say they fit in well. Besides, it’s hard to feel like the new kids when, as Dean said wryly, “we’re most probably two of the older skaters on the block.”

* What: Stars on Ice.

* When: 8 p.m. Friday.

* Where: The Pond of Anaheim, 2695 E. Katella Avenue.

* Whereabouts: From the Santa Ana (5) or Orange (57) freeways, exit at Katella Avenue, drive east and turn left onto Douglass Road.

* Wherewithal: $29.50-$42.50.

* Where to call: (714) 704-2500 or (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).