Rockettes Bring A Taste Of Christmas To Their Fans

(Photo gallery by Harry Zernike, For Patch)

In the Dzubaty household, part of the Thanksgiving tradition includes watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade while dinner is being cooked.

“We always have the parade on while we’re cooking,” Catherine Dzubaty said. “But when the Rockettes come on, everything stops so we can watch them.”

Once the Rockettes are off the TV screen? “Then we go back to cooking,” Dzubaty said.

Dzubaty, an employee of the Monmouth County Park System, said she and her sister grew up going to New York City every year from Howell to see the Rockettes during the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Her sister, Carol, dreamed as a child of being a Rockette one day. Never did either expect to meet one. Or get to kick with them.

“She’s going to to be jealous,” Catherine Dzubaty said with a wide smile as she posed for photos and performed a few strut kicks with a pair of Rockettes who brought Christmas a little early to the workers at Holmdel Park on Wednesday.

Katie Hamrah and Maranda LeBar, decked out in their “12 Days of Christmas” costumes, kicked up smiles aplenty as they kicked off the upcoming Christmas Spectacular season with a tour of Monmouth and Middlesex counties. Hamrah, who is marking her 10th year as a Rockette, and LeBar, who is in her fourth, said getting off the stage and out into the community to meet fans is a rare opportunity but one they were excited to take part in.

“People come and see us in our home,” Hamrah said as she played peek-a-boo with Jason, 3, and Jaden, 4, cousins who were at the park with their grandmother, Joyce Bornemann. “I love when we get to come to their home and visit with them.”

It’s a different feeling from simply seeing the audience from the stage, LeBar said.

“To hear someone else has the dream that was my dream, it’s inspiring,” she said.

There were plenty of young dreamers when the dancers stopped at the Middletown Township Public Library. More than two dozen people -- primarily mothers and daughters -- came out to get a peek at the pair and learn some of their secrets.

There are the illusions, such as the fact that the tallest dancers -- Rockettes must be at least 5-foot-6 and cannot be taller than 5-foot-10-1/2 -- stand in the middle of the line, with the dancers arranged by height so that it gives the appearance they are all the same heights.

And when they put their arms behind each other’s backs in a kicking line? They’re not really touching each other, Hamrah said.

“It’s called ‘feeling the fabric,’ she told the group as the girls lined up to do a series of strut kicks with her and LeBar, joining young Raelyn Holmes, 3, who spent much of the question-and-answer section dancing up to LeBar before shying away. Strut kicks -- the waist-high kicks -- are just one of the kick styles in the show. The famous eye-high kicks require much more stretching and warmup, they said.

“I was so excited to meet them,” said Amy Lasch of Middletown, who used to work in Manhattan doing hair and makeup on various shows. “I’m fascinated by the institution (of the Rockettes). These girls are so trained and groomed, and to be in their presence is to see how it’s done.”

Lasch said each year she watches the Rockettes’ performance in the Thanksgiving parade and tries to mimic their moves.

“Each year I pick up something new,” she said. But learning some of the less obvious tidbits -- such as the dancers do their own hair and makeup, and get critiqued on every performance “down to our fingertips,” Hamrah said -- was even more special.

“I feel like I’ve been let in on a secret,” she said.

During the show season, for which rehearsals begin Friday, the dancers rehearse six days a week, seven hours a day. Once the shows begin, it’s nonstop.

“It’s a lot of blisters,” Hamrah said. “It’s a lot of kicks,” LeBar added. The dancers each perform about 300 kicks per show, with five shows a day. There are 36 dancers performing in each show, and more than double that number available at any time, so that if a dancer gets injured or is ill, someone is ready to step right in and fill the gap, they said.

During the endurance run that is the Christmas Spectacular, the dancers make sure they eat right and drink plenty of water and rest when they can.

“We’re taking naps on the dressing room floor sometimes,” Hamrah said.

Being a Rockette has led to interesting trips and experiences, the two said. Hamrah said her favorite memory was of meeting LeBron James during the NBA All-Star Game.

“There he was, just hanging out backstage,” she said.

The “Dancing With The Stars” fans in the library group also were abuzz about the dancers’ encounter with Derek Hough in the Spring Spectacular last spring at Radio City Music Hall, which they said was really fun.

“You could see the wheels turning in his head,” Hamrah said.

Budding dancers Elle Zitzner and Katie Farrell, 10-year-olds who dance at the Middletown Dance Academy, were awed by the number of hours the Rockettes spend rehearsing.

“They only get one day off,” said Katie as she held a pair of her old tap shoes, which the dancers autographed. She said she thinks she could make that kind of commitment some day. Elle wasn’t so sure. “Maybe,” she offered, a twinge of doubt in her voice.

Dancers must be 18 years old before they can audition for the show. Hamrah said she made it into the show on her first try, while LeBar said she auditioned three times before she made the cut.

“Sometimes just because you don’t make it on the first try doesn’t mean you’re not good enough,” LeBar said. “It just means it’s not your time yet.”

There is no maximum age limit on being a Rockette, they said.

“As long as you can still do it, you’re in,” Hamrah said.

Hamrah and LeBar, who said they have been taking dance lessons since they were about 2 years old -- “though I was probably dancing in the womb, because my mother is a dance teacher,” LeBar said -- told the members of Girl Scout Troop 83545 that they studied a wide range of dance styles.

“Jazz, tap, ballet, lyrical, hip-hop,” were just a few of the ones rattled off by LeBar, who grew up in Iselin, less than two miles from the Presbyterian Church in Woodbridge where the Scouts were meeting.

The Girl Scouts -- the troop is a mix of second-grader Daisy Scouts, Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts up to seventh grade -- excitedly welcomed the pair, peppering them with questions. They were most interested in whether Hamrah and LeBar knew a dancer named Taylor -- who it turned out is the cousin of one girl’s teacher.

The costumes also captured the Scouts’ attention. LeBar said there are stage hands who help them change costumes -- in one instance they have 90 seconds to change into an outfit that includes a jacket, gloves and different shoes -- and those stage hands are always checking to make sure everything is perfect, from the plume feather on their Toy Soldier hats to keeping duct tape handy if a dancer’s shoe breaks. “And it has happened,” Hamrah said.

After a few more kicks and a few more photos, it was time to say goodbye to the Scouts and head back to Radio City.

“Thank you for doing this,” said Tina Pinto, the adult leader of Girl Scout Troop 83545, her eyes aglow like a mesmerized child. “You made our week. You made my Christmas.”