Sunday, December 17, 2006

Seeing the Rockettes

We saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes today. All of the costumes were very well done. They were clearly designed to emphasize the dance steps, which they did very well. It was fun to watch them moving around.

The Rockettes are awesome! They are fantastic dancers - each number they did was exquisitely performed (well, one Rockette slipped and fell at one point, and the curtain came down on a Santa behind a screen, but aside from these two small issues, it was great). I especially liked the wooden soldier number and the Nutcracker number they did. The Nutcracker scene made me remember my childhood - my sisters and I went to see the ballet in Edmonton when I was growing up - I think my aunt took us for a few years. I remember enjoying that.

I didn't much like the rest of the show involving the Santas and the company dancers. I'm sure that many people liked the Santa theme - Santa was the MC for the show - but, well, I didn't like it so much. It seemed sort of crass and commercial. Also, much of the music and song lyrics had a 70s feel; they could use some updating.

Then there was the Living Nativity. It didn't really match the Santas - to go from commercialism and gift-giving represented by the Santas right to the birth of Christ was jarring (I know, I know, there's no pleasing me) . Sure, the wise men gave gifts, but clearly they were reverential in nature :) Apparently this Nativity has been performed since 1933. They did have sheep, camels, and a donkey as part of the Nativity, which made it sort of interesting. I kept hoping that the Rockettes would come out kicking during this scene, but they didn't.

So I'd recommend the Rockette parts of the show to anyone - it's just too bad that the show had things other than Rockettes.

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