Rockettes to Paris

Four times a day for six days (five on Saturdays), a vast, synthetic sunburst explodes in the auditorium of Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall, world's biggest theatre. Sometimes the 75-piece Music Hall Symphony Orchestra plays almost prayerfully. Sometimes it lashes and groans through a hot, new delirium. The 46 young ladies in the Rockette troupe are equal to either occasion. They can move shyly and demurely in ballet tulle. They can kick and whirl giddily to shrieking brass. Exact, machine-like execution has made the Rockettes known wherever U. S. precision dancing is known and many a strict balletomane takes the organization seriously. New glory came last week to the Rockettes when Edmond Labbe, general commissioner of the Paris Exposition, picked them out to dance at the Exposition's international dance festival July 2. The Rockettes are the first U. S. dance troupe officially invited to appear in France. They will represent the U. S. on a program that includes such distinguished performers as La Scala Ballet, the Copenhagen Opera Ballet, the Soviet Ballet.

The Rockettes came into being in 1925 when a hoofer named Russell Markert rounded up 16 girls to dance at the Skouras Brothers' Missouri Theatre in St. Louis. He called them the Missouri Rockets. When Broadway clamored for the troupe, Markert changed their name to the American Rockets and took them East. They danced in Publix theatres, in the Greenwich Village Follies. The late Producer Samuel ('Roxy") Rothafel signed them up for his Roxy Theatre as the Roxyettes. When Roxy went to the Rockefeller Center Music Hall in 1932, the Roxyettes went with him. When he left two years later, they became the Rockettes and stayed on at Rockefeller Center.

Russell Markert still helps direct the Rockettes, helps work out their routines, which are divided between classical and tap dance numbers. Between their four shows daily he manages to sandwich rehearsals for new numbers. There are 46 in the troupe, but only 36 dance at one time. Rockettes earn $48.50 a week, dance three weeks out of four. The average Rockette stands 5 ft. 4 in. She may be anywhere from 18 to 23. Six of the girls are married, four engaged. There are more brunettes than blondes, three redheads. Few Rockettes are ravishing, because Markert cares more about legs than looks, but all are ambitious. Voted most likely to succeed in serious dancing was Jean Eckler of West Palm Beach, Fla. Most popular is Muriel Le Count of Jack son Heights, L. I.

The Rockettes reach Paris June 25, will put up in suburban St. Cloud. Twelve Frenchwomen, hand-picked by Exposition authorities, will look after the Rockettes during their two-week stay to help keep their discipline and deportment up to its high U. S. standard. For their official appearance, the Rockettes will dance four of their most famous routines in 16 minutes: Military March, in which 72 legs operate as synchronously as two; a buck & wing number; Midshipmen, a fast, stylized version of Annapolis drills; Beguine, a sultry, rumba-ish performance for which the girls make up like mulattoes.

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