High-kicking Radio City Rockettes mark 100 years with Christmas Spectacular

A staple of the New York City holiday season is marking a century of wowing crowds: The high-kicking Radio City Rockettes turn 100.

The Rockettes represent a throwback to old-time New York, when Broadway was dominated by extravagant music and dance spectacles, elaborate costumes and lavish sets. Their journey through the past century saw their modest Midwest beginning as a troupe of 16 precision dancers evolve into a large company of more than 80 staging as many as five shows a day. The shows incorporate a range of dance styles, including jazz, tap and ballet.

One thing that hasn't changed: generations of little girls grew up dreaming of joining the troupe.

Isabelle Harris, 20, a new Rockette from Utah, said she's still floored to be a part of this year's milestone.

"In my mind, the Rockettes were this amazing, strong, unique, glamorous group of women that I wanted to be a part of," she said. "It's so exciting to be joining the line this specific year."

Through the years

The signature Christmas Spectacular show dates to 1933, but the troupe itself traces back to the creation of the "Missouri Rockets" in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1925.

The troupe was brought to New York City by S.L. "Roxy" Rothafel, a theater impresario who initially renamed them the "Roxyettes" before eventually settling on the "Rockettes" when the act moved to the newly built Radio City Music Hall in 1932.

The troupe famously performed for weary American soldiers during World War II and has been a mainstay of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for decades. It 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 broadcasts.

"There is something about the Rockettes being the main event that is sentimental, riveting and iconic," says Lauren Gaul, chair of the commercial dance program at Pace University in Manhattan that's produced many of the troupe's dancers and a former Rockette herself. "Most times as dancers we are the background, the back up dancers, the core ensemble. We rarely get to headline."

The Rockettes' popularity waned in the 1960s as the counterculture and women's rights movements took off, she said. They even went on strike in 1967 seeking better pay.

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 storied home.

After decades of resistance, the troupe integrated when Jennifer Jones became the first Black Rockette in 1987.

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In the ensuing decades, the Rockettes launched touring productions, which expanded their national reach before ending in 2014.

Christmas show

The troupe's Christmas show is a blend of the traditional and modern, says Julie Branam, the show's longtime director.

The choreography in many of the most famous numbers remained largely unchanged since the troupe's founding, including the "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers," in which the costumed dancers march in military-like formation and then collapse like dominoes.

Some of the costume designs also stood the test of time, Branam said, though the materials were upgraded to withstand the rigors of the holiday season, which started this month and runs through Jan. 5.

Modern touches were added over the years, from digital projections to drones, holographic animations and even a double-decker sightseeing bus, which features prominently in "New York at Christmas," a relatively new song-and-dance number.

This year's shows, expected to be viewed by more than a million people, feature a new, immersive sound system similar to what's used at the Sphere entertainment venue in Las Vegas.

One of the most marked changes over the years was the increased technical abilities of the dancers, which allowed the troupe to incorporate faster kicks and more challenging dance moves, said Branam, a former Rockette. The dancers perform more than 200 kicks during each 90-minute, intermissionless show, she estimated.

"What's truly amazing is that we are all exceptional dancers but we are also athletes," Taylor Shimko, an assistant dance captain in her 16th season. "We say that we're athletes dripping in diamonds. Every part of this is hard work, but it's all about making it appear as though it's easy."

Danelle Morgan, a dance captain in her 20th year with the company, said if she was to travel back in time to the troupe's founding, she'd thank those early pioneers for the legacy they left to generations of dancers.

"Being a Rockette is something I didn't anticipate," she said. "It becomes a piece of your identity, this job. It's something that's really special, and I didn't necessarily see that coming."

Photos: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade through the years