A Maryland Rockette gets her kicks on stage: ‘It’s the best Christmas gift’

When Maddie Rodrigue was 12 years old, she traveled to New York after Thanksgiving to see the Radio City Rockettes for the first time.

Rodrigue, who grew up in Ellicott City and attended Marriotts Ridge High School, already had begun charting her own course as a dancer.

“I had chills,” she said of watching the iconic dancers renowned for their high kicks and their Christmastime shows. “I was dissecting every step that they were doing … and I turned to my mom, who was one of my earliest dance teachers, and I was like, ‘Mom, I want to do this. I have to do this. I can do this.’”

“That’s when the dream was born.”

Now 27 and living in New York, Rodrigue is in the midst of her fourth season as a Rockette, donning sparkling outfits as she contributes to the legacy of America’s longest-running precision dance company, founded in 1925.

As part of Radio City Music Hall’s “Christmas Spectacular” holiday show in New York, 84 Rockettes in two casts have been putting on multiple shows a day, a demanding schedule that continues through Jan. 4.

“The show is difficult. It is challenging on the mind and the body,” Rodrigue said. “But when I look out at the crowd, and I know that all it takes is one person — if there was one little performer out there, looking on stage with awe, just reminding me of myself when I was that age — that’s all it takes for me to get through the rest of the show.”

Rodrigue started dancing around the age of 3, giving jazz, tap and ballet a whirl. In Maryland, she trained at several studios, including Eldersburg’s Savage Dance Company, and has taught at Fulton’s Studio Dans.

Today, she instructs the next generation of dancers at the two local studios during the Rockettes’ off-season, in addition to serving as the director of dance for Young Artists of America, a program based in North Bethesda, and working with students at Howard County high schools.

It was while working at Studio Dans four years ago that Rodrigue, who honed her skills at Pace University in Manhattan, got the call that she’d be joining the ranks of the Rockettes.

During her first day of rehearsal and her first performance with the Rockettes, she said a familiar feeling washed over her: “full body chills.”

“Maddie is a very hard worker,” Rockettes director and choreographer Julie Branam, who started her career as a Rockette in 1988, told The Baltimore Sun in a written statement. “She listens and uses the mirror to digest feedback and help herself evolve as a dancer.”

In her four seasons with the Rockettes, Rodrigue “has grown into a more confident dancer,” Branam added. “Dancing in such close proximity is a unique skill set for the Rockettes. Everyone has to work together so everything looks precise, and each dancer on the line looks the same.”

Rehearsals leading up to the current season were six hours a day, for six days a week, spanning six weeks, Rodrigue said. During that time, warmups ranged from jogging in place to calisthenics, depending on dancers’ preferences, Branam explained.

“As rehearsals continue, the dancing gets stronger and muscle memory starts developing so the Rockettes can focus on really performing instead of counting their steps,” said Branam, calling the Rockettes “some of the hardest working people in show business.”

As for their memorable kicks, a “strong ballet foundation” and ample core strength is necessary, Branam said, “but really the only way to prepare to kick is to just kick.”

Known as “eye-high” kicks, they’re all about creating a seamless visual experience for the audience, with the tallest Rockettes standing in the center of the lineup.

“The illusion of us all kicking at the exact same height works by only kicking to our personal eye height,” Rodrigue said. “We brush our leg with a lot of power up to our eye level and then we use our hamstring muscles to pull our leg back down. … It is only eye height, but it does take a lot of strength and precision and flexibility to get to that eye height every single time, for all of the kicks that we do in a show.”

The feat made an impression on Rodrigue long before she had the opportunity to take part in it herself.

“As a young girl who was training at a high level of dance, I was really inspired by the fact that I saw this line of women on stage moving in complete unison,” she said. “It was beautiful.”

There are kick lines in almost every number of the 90-minute, nine-number production, Rodrigue said.

Her personal favorite is “New York at Christmas,” which features the entire ensemble in winter coats and sparkly red and green dresses — plus a double-decker bus. Getting dressed for the “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” — a number that’s been around since 1933, the first year of the “Christmas Spectacular” at Radio City Music Hall — makes Rodrigue feel the most like a Rockette.

And in a number called “Sleigh Ride,” which Rodrigue remembers seeing performed when she sat in the audience as a kid, the Rockettes don velvet tuxedo jackets and hats with sparkly antlers that light up as they dance, transformed into “jazzy dancer versions of Santa’s reindeer.”

On Christmas, Rodrigue’s family will be in the audience. “It’s the best Christmas gift” dancing with her fellow Rockettes, she said.

By the end of the season, she’ll be ready for rest — but not to leave Radio City Music Hall behind.

“As soon as the show ends,” she said, “I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s do it again.’”