Director, Urban Dance Centre and J-Foxx Entertainment.
I was living in New York and my Thursday morning ritual was wake up, buy the Backstage newspaper (that was filled front to back with auditions), grab a coffee and a bagel and sit in Central Park circling the auditions.
One morning the first thing that jumped out was an audition to be a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall, New York, New York. I circled it 20 times and locked that date in quick smart!
Audition day arrived and I made my way to Radio City Music Hall – the line was out the door, twisting its way around the block.
There is a height requirement to be a Rockette, and they measured me to see if I was tall enough before being allowed to enter the building. I’m 5’8” and just scraped in.
It was so exciting I could hardly contain myself. Being backstage, seeing all the iconic costumes, the celebrity photos and walking into the longest dance studio I’d ever seen, I decided this was one gig I definitely wanted.
Round 1: Dancers were taken into the studio in groups of fifty, taught a strong, stylised jazz routine that was very line specific. It was intense – the panel was looking for strong, elegant, stylespecific dancers that could kick their legs high and stay in clean formations.
They broke the groups down into six, watched each group, then made the first cut.
Round 2: We had to execute the famous Radio City Music Hall Rockette kick-line. A challenging experience as the panel was incredibly specific on lines and precision. Then... they cut again.
Round 3: A fast, classic tap routine. Luckily I grew up with a Vaudevillian, brilliant tapper Dad, which got me through to the next and final round.
Round 4: “To the wardrobe department!” Here the seamstresses took measurements, everything from head to toe and height again. Then onto another room where we were weighed and even had our body fat measured!
It was one of my favourite and most exciting audition experiences and I was absolutely fascinated by how thorough the process was.
Then the day was over. I was told “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” and someone would be in contact.. soon..
The next week, a phone call with a very polite voice on the other side asking if I would be interested in being “a Radio City Music Hall Rockette”. “Would I !?!?!.. Absolutely!”
Juliette was a Rockette for one year. She is also a featured choreographer on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’.
This article was first published in the June-July 2014 issue of Dance Australia magazine.