![]() ![]() Rockettes tend to get asked back year after year, which makes it one of the steadiest gigs in the business - and one of the few gigs for jazz and tap-dancers who don't also sing. Off season, Carrie Janell Hamner, 24, auditions for television pilots and does improv comedy Jaime Lyn Windrow, 29, studies nutrition and Meg Huggins, 33, models and works, as do so many others, as a Pilates instructor. Love Osgood's costumes, the camaraderie among crew members and dancers, the protective watch the management keeps on its charges, monitoring every conversation they have with reporters.Ī fair number of the performers spend the rest of the year working in musical theater, but for others this is their only time dancing onstage. Yet there is still charm in the organization's old-fashioned ways - the labels reading "Miss Love" in each of Ms. In recent years their show has become increasingly athletic (and a hint sexier), with more kick lines and aerobic dance routines. Even in a city full of sweating, striving talent, the Rockettes may well be the hardest-working women in show business. ![]() But one thing is constant: their sheer physical accomplishment. The Rockettes are instantly recognizable symbols, but what they represent depends on who is doing the interpreting: to some they're Stepford dancers, objectified women reduced to nothing but legs and teeth to others they're glamour personified, the last, cherished remnants of a "Guys and Dolls"-style nightlife and to yet another part of the audience they're glorious kitsch, as amusing as they are entertaining. Looking toward the Christmas season, most people foresee a hectic time of year for the Rockettes, it's like standing in front of an onrushing train. show must fight her way through a mob just to get a gulp of fresh air or a coffee around the corner. Even long before the peak of the season, a Rockette who finishes a 10 a.m. All in all, 1.2 million people came to see the show last year, bringing in $74 million in ticket sales over nine weeks. But it's also a time of gruelingly hard work, of seven dance numbers and six costume changes per show, as many as five shows in a 13-hour day, and as many as six days of work a week.Īnd then there are the crowds: the girls in red velvet and Mary Janes and the tourists with laminated folding maps, so determined to see the show that they line up first thing in the morning, some willing to pay as much as $250 for an orchestra seat. This is high season for the Rockettes, three solid months of steady work, solid pay, grateful audiences and all the excitement of dancing in New York with a world-famous company. And energy is something they dearly need. They miss the musicians, several say, not to mention the extra energy they get from the live music. ![]() But two days before, the musicians had gone on strike, and after two preseason shows were canceled, the Rockettes, for the first time in the 73-year history of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, started the season performing to a digital recording. ![]() Ordinarily, the dancers also would have been able to see the familiar faces of the 35 orchestra members. Meanwhile huddled at the edge of the curtain, one young woman caught a glimpse of her parents, seated near the front, and clapped in delight. "Jump, shuffle, leap, toe," they repeated. "Just go," her friend reassured her, and with a clattering of her tap shoes, the worrier was off.Īmy Love Osgood, 26, a first-year Rockette, was going over a tricky part of the opening number. One dancer told her friend she had to go to the bathroom, but was nervous that she didn't have enough time. All flashing the same red-lipstick smile, batting the same fake eyelashes, they flirted with crew members, adjusted their Statue of Liberty-style crowns or wished one another good luck. Dressed in sequined skating costume, their shoulders swaying, they sauntered down a narrow hallway and gathered off stage right, waiting to go on for the holiday show's opening night. ONE after the other, like beautiful, glittering drones, the Rockettes spilled off an elevator onto the stage level at Radio City Music Hall. ![]()
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