E-Mail This Article to a Friend Getting our kicks? The Rockettes’ Christmas Spectacular comes to Boston BY IRIS FANGER

Those of you still smarting from the displacement of Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker in favor of the buckets of money the Wang Center expects to make from the Rockettes can walk yourselves over to the Colonial Theatre. Otherwise, you can watch one of the most beloved of show-biz legends. The Rockettes kicked their way into Radio City Music Hall at its opening-night program, December 27, 1932, along with vaudeville stars, an opera diva, a ballet troupe, the Flying Wallendas, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Graham was never asked back, but the Rockettes have remained a staple of the RCMH shows. There are currently 225 women in the various Rockette troupes. More than 3000 women have danced on the line since 1932, including film star Vera-Ellen, Balanchine ballerina Melissa Hayden, and Deborah Yates, the original Girl in the Yellow Dress in contact.

In 1994, RCMH’s annual holiday offering, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, was cloned into a number of troupes headed by a phalanx of Rockettes in each and sent across the land, where it attracts 2.1 million viewers each year. Now it’s come to the Wang Theatre, where it will open next Thursday. The cast of 44 performers includes an ensemble of 14 men and women singers and dancers, assorted actors as Mr. and Mrs. Claus and their helpful elves, and a line of 18 Rockettes. The first half of the performance includes the Rockettes’ numbers and a quick-time version of The Nutcracker. Act two is the traditional "Living Nativity."

Back in the 1930s, the format at RCMH included a first-run film plus a 40-minute stage show featuring the Rockettes, six or eight performances daily. Jane Sherman, who became a Rockette in 1934, during the troupe’s heyday as a sanitized symbol of the all-American girl, described it in a 1976 Dance magazine article: "You have to have the health of an Amazon, the heart of an Olympic marathon runner, the lungs of Mark Spitz, and the sexy legs of a supp-hose advertisement that were as iron-muscled as a racehorse." Sherman was a Rockette in an era when the "girls" were at RCMH from 9 a.m. for rehearsal call through the last show at 9 p.m., seven days a week. They worked three weeks straight before getting a fourth week off to recover. By the 1970s, audiences had dwindled, and eventually the format was changed. In August 2002, the remaining Rockettes were bought out of their contracts; they’re now hired from project to project.

Linda Haberman, director of the Boston Christmas Spectacular, never worked as a Rockette but did appear in Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ and a number of other Broadway shows. She’s been a choreographer and a director of the Christmas Spectacular for the past 12 years. "A day on the road for the Rockettes goes like this. When we’re in the rehearsal studio, we work from 10 to 5 or 6 p.m. six days a week. Once we’re into the theater, we work from 1 p.m. to 11 o’clock at night, straight through until we open. They do as many as four shows a day on Fridays and Saturdays, three on Sunday. No days off."

The annual auditions for the Christmas Spectacular are conducted by Haberman and her staff at RCMH in April and August. Several years ago, I watched a two-day audition in which 419 women were whittled down to a troupe of 40 after being asked to learn and perform a 12-bar routine and a tap dance, then sing and deliver some lines. "The first check is for height, from five-five-and-a-half to five-ten." (The gimmick is arranging the line with the tallest Rockette in the center down to the shortest ones on the ends to give the impression of equal height.) "I look for basic dance techniques: tap and a strong background in ballet. You need that for the stamina to do the show. What’s really important is an ability to assimilate details, because we are a unison troupe and the dancer must do everything exactly like the person next to her. The dancer must have a quick mind." These days, in contrast to past history, the Rockettes are also looking for women of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds. "We’re working very hard. Hopefully, it will move forward in the future."

In the 1930s, the Rockettes transformed the image of the unsavory chorus girl into that of an unapproachable, highly trained, gorgeous-looking woman often dressed in red, white, and blue when she wasn’t rigged up in bunny fur, reindeer antlers, or the uniform of a wooden soldier. How do they achieve their hallmark precision? According to a current teacher, "Repetition is one of the best tools for precision dance. You just do it again and again. You use your peripheral vision while you’re dancing. This is not taking away your personal style. It’s coming through your eyes. The Rockettes are a dance company that loves the camaraderie, the teamwork."

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes runs December 2 through 31 at the Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street in the Theater District. Tickets are $18.50 to $74.50; call (800) 447-7400, or visit www.wangcenter.org