Ice dance is known for its dramatic storytelling, and no one does it better than Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the U.S. couple known for testing the limits of what’s possible on the ice with spectacular lifts, eye-catching costumes, and bold narratives that make their routines unforgettable. But in each of their Olympic efforts, they have been overshadowed by other teams or plagued by unusual mistakes that kept them off the podium.
The Milano Cortina Olympics will be their first as a married couple, and they are pushing the boundaries yet again with a matador-inspired routine for their free dance. “We love the creative process, and it’s fun for us to start diving into the music search, costume brainstorms, and program concept,” says Chock. “We love reinventing ourselves each season and giving the audience something they haven’t seen from us before.”
This season, in a gender-role reversal, Chock, 33, plays the matador and Bates, 36, the bull. But there is also a third member of the dance that can take on a life of its own: a long, flowing skirt that Chock wears that doubles as a cape. Maintaining control of how the skirt billows with the bursts of speed they generate has been the biggest challenge—and risk—of the season.
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Chock, who designs the couple’s costumes, started with a heavier fabric and created a skirt that was double-faced, to throw out flashes of color as they skated. But the weight of the skirt kept getting in the way and posed a danger during some of the intricate lifts, as it blocked Bates’ view when he was holding Chock. They switched to a lighter fabric, but the skirt is still relatively long and remains an unpredictable part of their program.
“It is hard to fully control the skirt,” says their coach Patrice Lauzon. “Sometimes it has a mind of its own. If they skate slightly slower, or have a little more rotation or less…
