It’s opening night at Radio City and inside the famed music hall, snow is flying through the air.
But this “snow” is the annual Radio City Christmas Spectacular’s latest spectacle. These giant snowflakes, 4 feet in diameter, soar above the audience, eliciting loud gasps.
For the Rockettes’ new number, “Snow,” the “Christmas Spectacular” team created nine inflatable “snowflakes” that rise up from the stage pit and into the air above the orchestra seats.
Made of an ultra-thin plastic and filled with helium, the snowflakes use GPS technology so a computer can track their locations. Each of the inflatable snowflake spheres, which are powered by tiny motors, has its own flight plan to prevent them from bumping into one another — and to make them appear to dance.
Linda Haberman, the show’s director and choreographer since 2006, got the idea to make it snow inside the hallowed hall about two years ago.
“We couldn’t literally snow in the house, so I was like, ‘What could we do that’s really fun?’ ” she says. “This crazy GPS thing came up and I said, ‘Well, could we make snowflakes?’ ”
A lot of research and development later, the answer was yes. Larry Sedwick, senior VP of productions for MSG Entertainment, turned to a company in Germany for its specialization in inflatables and another in Amsterdam for the GPS technology.
“There’s a lot of little things that you don’t even think about: aerodynamics, control, noise,” says Sedwick, who sorted through a lot of potential shapes and designs.
The final product is a perfect balance of weight that makes it light enough that the propellers can move it forward — but heavy enough that they will sink to safety should they suddenly malfunction. Not to worry, though; they still weigh next to nothing, so they’d land as softly as a real flake.
But while the new snowflakes are the flashiest addition to the show, Haberman put just as much work into envisioning the Rockettes’ choreography for “Snow.”
Unlike the more staccato choreography that the leggy dancers are known for, the “Snow” steps are more fluid — the Rockettes twirl their arms and even glide gently.
“I’m constantly trying to think of ways to broaden the definition of precision dance,” says Haberman. “So that it’s not just about straight lines and everyone has to do the same thing all the time.”
That stems from the concept of snow that started it all.
“Like the Rockettes, every snowflake is different,” says Haberman.
“But when you put them together, they make something beautiful and powerful and something different than when they’re individuals.”
As a result, in the beginning of the number, each Rockette has her own unique movements, a far cry from the military precision of, say, the famous “The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.”
“In my mind,” says Haberman, “they’re drifting snowflakes and then they slowly evolve into sort of a big snowstorm or snowfall and eventually become more and more in unison.”
It is, after all, a show about dance.
“The number has to hold up and be relevant and meaningful if you stripped everything away from it, if you took away the flying objects and the fancy scenery and all of that,” she says.
Given that this number’s been in the works since 2011, does that mean Haberman is currently buzzing with ideas for 2015?
“Oh yes,” she says, with a laugh. “It’s perpetual Christmas in my brain.”