IF YOU GO

• What: "The Radio City Christmas Spectacular"

Joey Ivansco/AJC (ENLARGE)
Rockette Tina Moya looks at her 'Parade of the Wooden Soldiers' pants, which are starched so heavily they stand on their own — so the dancers indeed seem wooden in the scene.
Joey Ivansco/AJC (ENLARGE)
Kim Petros and the other Rockettes have several costume changes, so the crew must keep track of the dancers' shoes.
Joey Ivansco/AJC (ENLARGE)
Rockettes Kim Petros (left) and Tina Moya
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• Where: Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E.

• When: Through Dec. 4

• Ticket info: $26.50-$59.50 depending on date and time; call 404-817-8700 for details.

DID YOU KNOW:

Backstage: 13 dressers, seven costume changes (hats, clothes, tights and shoes)

Onstage: 18 Rockettes, four alternates, six chorus members

Scenes: 12 total. Length of show: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Animal attractions: four sheep, two camels, one donkey (for "The Living Nativity" scene)

Get your kicks: Rockettes perform 200 "eye-high" kicks per show

Don't let your little girls read this if you're taking them to see the Rockettes perform at the Fox Theatre. It could ruin the magic attached to the elaborate Broadway-style production punctuated by its dancers' famed "eye-high" kicks.

The sight of 18 women high-kicking in unison seems effortlessly executed, but the Rockettes are no cookie-cutter Glamazons.

They sweat. They rehearse six hours a day, six days a week, for six weeks at a facility in Myrtle Beach, S.C., to make sure each woman's kicking just as high — and at the same time — as the ones dancing beside her.

"Though the Rockettes are famous for their kicks, it is so much more than a line of women kicking," said Denise Gines of Decatur, describing the "magical" shows she attended as a child at Radio City Music Hall in the 1950s and '60s. "I dreamed about becoming a Rockette because of their discipline and precision."

On an "easy day," Rockette Kim Petros, 24, says the troupe performs its eye-high kicks about 200 times, smiling all the while. On busier days — there are four shows on Saturdays and three on Sundays — they will kick in unison as many as 800 times a day.

"Between shows, you'll see everybody in the dressing room with their feet up to keep the swelling down and get the blood back circulating everywhere else," said Petros, who's in her fourth year touring with the show.

Between scenes, each Rockette has just three to 10 minutes to change costumes. They're aided by a crew of 13 dressers who help monitor every numbered article of clothing stored in cramped cubicles backstage.

"The most crucial thing to keep track of is shoes," said wardrobe supervisor Lola Powell. "That has to be right every change. And sometimes a 3 can be misread as 8. That's no good, because you can't dance in someone else's shoes."

In addition to carefully monitoring the shoes, Powell expects the cast of 18 dancers, four alternates and six chorus members to take partial responsibility for the care and upkeep of their costumes.

"If someone has a big run somewhere in their tights, they get a new pair," Powell said. "If they have a big hole in the toe because they let the toenail get too long, they keep 'em."

Powell's team mends and cleans costumes on a nearly nonstop basis from the troupe's arrival through departure. She washes the cast's undergarments in allergen-free soaps, and she sprays all the heavy headgear with a vodka-and-water solution that disinfects and deodorizes organically.

"Everyone has seven different costumes," Powell said. "Seven pairs of shoes and seven different hats. With every number, you're changing from head to toe. Nothing ever gets used twice."

Costumes also have evolved with the times.

"Styles have changed since 1933," Powell said. "[Rockettes] never used to show their hair, and they never used to show skin. We're getting a little more 'Vegas' now. I don't like that term, but we're truly getting more modern."

And while still rather tame compared with Las Vegas showgirl standards, the Rockettes' costumes give new meaning to the phrase "wardrobe malfunction."

Clutching the puffy shoulder of the velvet costume she wears in the "Sleighride" show opener, Petros said, "I've had one of these [fist-size] bells come off, which then becomes a tripping hazard.

"It makes everybody whisper out of the corners of their mouths as we're dancing, 'Bell onstage! Bell onstage!' "

Every detail matters

Holiday show costumes and production numbers vary from city to city, with the exception of "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" and "The Living Nativity," which are "Christmas Spectacular" mainstays that date to the show's origins.

One other element has remained constant since the show began with a 1933 performance in New York: attention to detail.

"Our directors sit out in the seats to make sure the lipstick we choose to wear works with everyone else's," said Tina Moya, a veteran performer with the show.

"Most of us use a heavy lip liner," said Moya. "It's a vigorous show, and we wouldn't want our lipstick to bleed. And, of course, we use waterproof mascara and wear these theater-strength eyelashes."

Lace inserts on costumes and boot colors for the "Sleighride" scene are matched as closely as possible to each Rockette's skin tone. Other visual tricks are applied as well.

The dance team's height requirement ranges from 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 10 1/2 inches. For the sake of uniformity — a major obsession within the Rockettes' ranks — costumes are hemmed and trimmed to make each dancer look the same size.

"We're staged so that the shortest people are at the ends of the lines, and we build up to the tallest people in the middle," said Petros, who's 3 inches shorter than her dance mate, Moya. "It's a visual trick."

During their performance as toy soldiers, the Rockettes dance onstage "as stiffly as if we had wooden stakes running down our pant legs," Petros said. "A long time ago, they actually did have wood in the pant legs to keep them straight."

Now that effect is achieved through the painstaking process of "boxing" the Wooden Soldier pants by dousing them in liquid starch and searing them in a hot steel press every other day. The task has been contracted out to the Sig Samuels dry-cleaning company in Midtown.

Such starch-induced tricks left quite an impact on the Rampley family of Marietta when the Rockettes last performed at the Fox in 2001.

"We took eight family members to see the show, and everyone loved the pageantry of it," said Bill Rampley. "For this year's return engagement, we're taking 10 family members to see the show."

Debra Rampley said, "Everybody's favorite is the toy soldiers and the way they fall down at the end."

Native New Yorker Honey Rubin of east Cobb also recalls the many Rockette shows she saw as a child.

"I would just sit there with my mouth open, wondering, 'How do they do that? How does each one know how long of a step to take or how high to kick?' " she said. "The costumes. The color. The way they smiled the whole time. And it wasn't like it was their work smiles. You could tell they truly enjoyed it."

A tradition spreads

Prior to 1994, Rockettes fans had to travel to New York to see that popular scene. Since then, traveling troupes like the one visiting Atlanta have performed for more than 9 million people in 22 cities, according to Radio City Entertainment.

Many also are familiar with the Rockettes from their annual dance through the streets of Manhattan. That's how they caught Moya's attention.

"I remember growing up outside of Los Angeles and seeing the Rockettes on TV in the [Macy's] Thanksgiving Day Parade," she said. "I was moved by how beautiful a group of women could be in unison."

Like a true Rockette, Moya — who has toured in productions of "Cats" and "Beauty and the Beast" during the nine months that she's not with the show — is unfazed by the job's pains and strains.

"A lot of us have problems with bunions, actually, because we dance in 2 1/2-inch heels," said Petros. "Ankle problems are common. Fatigue. Muscle pulls. Neck injuries. Tight backs ... "

But there's a bright side, she stressed.

"Being a Rockette's all about the legs. And when you're doing 200 kicks per show, your legs get nice and tight."