(Updated: December 24, 2020)
The Radio City Rockettes perform the March of the Wooden Soldier at the Christmas Spectacular in Radio City Music Hall.
More than 2 million people see the Radio City Rockettes s Christmas Spectacular show each season and it’s a wonder you have to see to believe. Here are some things you might not have known about the leggy dance company, which has become synonymous with the magic of the holiday season.
1. The Radio City Rockettes got their start in St. Louis.
Nope, the Radio City Rockettes weren’t always a Midtown Manhattan attraction. The Rockettes launched in 1925 as the Missouri Rockets, a Follies-style dance troupe out of St. Louis. Creator Russell Markert got the idea after he was impressed by the UK precision dance troupe in 1922’s Ziegfeld Follies. “If I ever got a chance to get a group of American girls who would be taller and have longer legs and could do really complicated tap routines and eye-high kicks,” he once said, “they’d