Basic HTML Version
OCTOBER 2013 -
SEXY X2
MAGAZINE -
13
The process was stop and go. The snow-
flakes — a soap-and-water mixture meant
to dissolve before hitting the ground —
were not always the right consistency. The
dancers were still adjusting with the new
choreography.
“It’s more athletic,” Lisa-Marie Lewis, an
eight-year-veteran of the Rockettes and a
dancer in “The Lion King,” said. “We’re
still figuring out where we can catch our
breath.”
Some things were going right. In the
theater balconies the singers — sometimes
dressed as Radio City ushers — perform a
mix of new and old numbers that provide a
sort of narrative through-line to the show.
“They’re the voices of Radio City,” Ms.
Haberman said, “the ones tying it all
together and leading us from the past to
the present.” She also added a bit with two
skeptical boys, brothers who must be con-
vinced that, despite what it may say on the
Internet, Santa is real. “I wanted to inject a
little more of an emotional turn,” she said.
“It’s great to do one number after another
that’s fun and exciting and dynamic, but I
thought it needed to touch us in a different
kind of way.”
Joey Maher, 9, of Middletown, N.J., plays
one of the brothers. He was somehow con-
vinced to part from homework to chat for
a minute near the tutoring area in an up-
stairs lounge. “I know Santa, so you better
watch out because I can tell him if you’re
being naughty or nice — that’s what I tell
the kids at school,” he said.
Though he was excited that he gets to fly
in the show, he was otherwise blasé about
his New York debut. “I’m never nerv-
ous,” he said. (His mother, Christina, was
less sanguine about the flying. “I have to
tell him, ‘No chocolate milk before the
show,’” she said.)
The regained-innocence section is fol-
lowed by another emotional moment, a
montage of images of Rockettes through
the years. And then there is the new show-
stopper: 36 women decked out in shim-
mering silver dresses and arranged in the
shape of a towering Christmas tree. But
instead of closing the show after the liv-
ing Nativity, as has been the custom, Ms.
Haberman instituted a curtain call, a rare
treat for dancers used to — and prized for
— anonymous uniformity. Decked out in
the crystal dresses, said Purdie Baumann,
a six year-veteran, “you definitely feel like
a star.”
On Monday the new “Christmas Spec-
tacular” had its first full dress rehearsal. A
dance captain was giving some of the cast
personalized notes.
“Watch where you aim with that confetti
cannon,” she told one. And to another,
“Make sure you’re in a nice plié and then
— attitude, attitude!”
Jinglejinglejinglejinglejingle. Rockettes
in spangled reindeer costumes skittered
through the hallways, past the Santa cos-
tumes piled in every corner, to get to their
places for the first number. Onstage they
stretched and rehearsed and tested their
light-up antlers. Then the gold curtain
opened, and the smoky lights went up, and
there was that kick line. Before long it was
snowing again in Radio City.