The Radio City Rockettes are like the Chrysler Building – they’re standing pillars of quintessential New York icons. Synonymous with precise eye-high kicks and breathtaking glamor, they are Christmas personified.
Rare national glimpses of the dance troupe used to be reserved for a 60-second spot on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade telecast. But in 1994 when the company began its Radio City Christmas Spectacular tour, taking the enchantment of classic New York spirit to cities across the U.S., nationwide audiences rejoiced at the opportunity to celebrate Christmas with these infamous holiday cheer-rousers.
Though the tour has evolved and grown significantly with each passing year, Nov. 10 marks the first that the tour will make an appearance in Madison at the Alliant Energy Center.
For Teresa Burks, a UW Madison senior and Racine native who is celebrating her tenth year as a Rockette, the tour’s Madison stop affords two new opportunities – her family will have the chance to see her perform locally, and she’ll have the chance to introduce her fellow Rockettes to our state’s cherished cheese curds.
And after surviving six-hour practices six days a week for four consecutive weeks, it would seem that a cheese curd indulgence is most certainly in order for Burks and the 17 other Rockettes she is set to perform with.
The tour will feature the signature Rockette numbers like “New York at Christmas” and “The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” along with several new numbers.
“This is our newest production and it’s a much newer, revamped show,” Burks said in a recent interview with The Badger Herald.
But Burks assures that the vigor and passionate precision of classic Rockette numbers like the “The 12 Days of Christmas,” an astonishing seven-minute tap performance that requires an immeasurable amount of rigorous athleticism, will always be the hallmark any Rockettes show.
But how do they fight off the exhaustion and maintain those twinkling smiles?
“We actually do a challenge against each other, nine rockettes against nine rockettes, and we do a tap-off,” Burks said.
Before Burks was doing tap-offs, she was a Vegas showgirl for five years. It was in Vegas where Burks saw the Rockettes perform at the Flamingo Hilton and was reminded of her career dream to audition in New York for a coveted position as a Rockette.
“Being a showgirl is very similar, but being a Rockette is being part of a history,” Burks said. “One of my favorite parts of the job is being a role model to younger girls who are interested in dance.”
Along with being a role model embodying a sense of old school New York performance art, Burks is also steadily completing her UW undergraduate degree in biology with a pre-dental focus. The task of executing all her responsibilities effectively seems daunting, but for Burks, the techniques necessary for achieving each successfully go hand in hand.
“They help one another,” Burks said. “With dancing you have to set your goals and be a hard worker and be dedicated and really donate your time to getting really good at tap, jazz, ballet or a specific style of being a Rockette, and that’s crossed over into my school life.”
Though Christmas performances and a continued dedication to living her Rockette dream are what Burks is focusing on now, her future holds what some may call much more ordinary plans.
“I want to go to dental school and settle down in Wisconsin,” Burks said. “And when the Rockettes come to town 20 years from now, I want to see them and share that experience with my children.”
An experience that sounds ordinary in nature is exactly what a New York icon could wish for.
The Radio City Christmas Spectacular will kick off Nov. 10 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center. Performances will be at 4 and 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster or at the Alliant Energy Center box office.
