NEW YORK (AP) — A staple of New York’s holiday season marks a century of jaw-dropping crowds: the mighty Radio City Rockettes are celebrating their 100th anniversary.
The famous dance troupe will celebrate the anniversary this week with its annual Christmas Spectacular, a festive spectacle of synchronized dance routines which includes the troupe’s signature precision kick line as well as the fan-favorite “Wooden Soldier Parade,” in which costumed dancers parade in military-style formation, then collapse like dominoes.
The Rockettes represent a return to the New York of yesteryear, when Broadway was dominated by extravagant music and dance performances, elaborate costumes and lavish sets. Their journey through the last century saw their humble beginnings in the Midwest, as a troupe of 16 precision dancers grew into a large company of more than 80 putting on up to five shows a day. Performances incorporate a range of dance styles including jazz, tap and ballet.
One thing that hasn’t changed: generations of little girls have grown up dreaming of joining the troop.
Isabelle Harris, a 20-year-old new Rockette from Utah, said she’s still excited to be part of this year’s milestone event.
“In my mind, the Rockettes were this incredible, strong, unique, glamorous group of women that I wanted to be a part of,” Harris said before rehearsal last week. “It’s so exciting to join the line this specific year.”
The Rockettes through the years
The Christmas show dates to 1933, but the troupe itself dates back to the founding of the “Missouri Rockets” in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1925.
They were brought to New York by SL “Roxy” Rothafel, a theater impresario who first renamed them the “Roxyettes” before finally settling on the “Rockettes” when the group moved to the newly constructed Radio City Music Hall in 1932.
The troupe performed for weary American soldiers during World War II and has been a mainstay of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for decades. In recent years, the Rockettes have appeared on the NFL’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, Broadway’s Tony Awards, MTV’s Video Music Awards, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” among other major events and shows.
“There’s something about the Rockettes being the main event that is sentimental, captivating and iconic,” says Lauren Gaul, chair of the commercial dance program at Pace University in Manhattan who has produced many of the troupe’s dancers and herself a former Rockette. “Most of the time, as dancers, we are the background, the backup dancers, the main ensemble. We rarely get to be the headliner.”
The Rockettes’ popularity declined in the 1960s as the counterculture and women’s rights movements took off, she said. They even have went on strike for almost a month in 1967 looking for better pay.
But as Radio City Music Hall faced closure and demolition in the late 1970s, the troupe reinvigorated its image by becoming the public face of a successful campaign to preserve its history.
In the late 1980s, after decades of resistance, the all-white troupe finally integrated when Jennifer Jones became the first black Rockette in 1987.
Over the next decades, the Rockettes launched touring productions, which expanded their national reach before ending in 2014. New directors and choreographers also injected more complex and contemporary dance elements into the production, according to Gaul.
Rockettes’ flagship Christmas show
The troupe’s signature Christmas show is a mix of traditional and modern, says Julie Branam, the show’s longtime director.
The choreography of many of the most famous numbers has remained virtually unchanged since the troupe’s inception, including the “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.”
Some costume designs have also stood the test of time, she said, although materials have been improved to withstand the rigors of the holiday season, which runs through Jan. 5.
Modern touches have been added over the years, from digital projections to drones, holographic animations and even a real double-decker tour bus, which features prominently in “New York at Christmas,” a relatively new song-and-dance number.
This year’s shows, expected to be seen by more than a million people, feature a new immersive audio system similar to that used at the Sphere entertainment venue in Las Vegas.
But one of the most notable changes over the years has been the improvement in dancers’ technical abilities, which has allowed the troupe to incorporate faster kicks and more difficult dance moves, says Branam, a Rockette alum. Dancers perform more than 200 kicks during each 90-minute show without interruption, she estimated.
“What’s really amazing is that we’re all exceptional dancers, but we’re also athletes,” Taylor Shimko, assistant dance captain in her 16th season. “We say we’re athletes covered in diamonds. Every part of it is hard work, but it’s all about making it look easy.”
Danelle Morgan, dance captain in her 20th year with the company, said if she were to travel back in time to the troupe’s founding, she would thank those early pioneers for the legacy they left for generations of dancers.
“Becoming a Rockette is something I didn’t plan on,” she said before rehearsal last week. “This job becomes a part of your identity. It’s something really special, and I didn’t necessarily see it coming.”
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Follow Philippe Marcelo on https://x.com/philmarcelo
