Sydney Mesher is the first differently abled Rockette at Radio City Music Hall:
Sitting in a brick-colored upholstered chair, she gets her hair and makeup performance-ready. The end of the mascara tube rests in the crook of her left elbow as she twists its wand free with her right hand, then applies. She gathers her shoulder-length blond hair into a sleek French twist, doing the twisting and pinning with her right hand while her left arm straightens and temporarily secures.Editor's PicksMoments before the show, she gets the antlers for her costume checked.
Her toes sail to eye level in perfect sync with those of her colleagues. Mesher makes the exacting geometry and speed look easy. If you zoom out to take a macro look at the stage, she disappears into the line, as intended. Sydney Mesher, a Radio City Rockette who was born with one hand, stretches before practice for the 2019 Christmas Spectacular.Lynn Mesher was 23 weeks pregnant when a routine ultrasound turned up something out of the ordinary.
Sitting with his wife on their eldest daughter's couch in Brooklyn, just after their 25th wedding anniversary, Page holds up his right hand. All these years later, the ring is still there. Her name was Nicole Jamieson, and like Mesher, she had been born with one hand. Page got in touch with the family through the reporter and drove more than 200 miles from Portland to Helix so that Mesher could meet Jamieson and see her play.
"She taught me how to tie my shoes," Mesher says."She taught me how to shave my armpits. Nicole taught me how to put my hair up in a more efficient way. She ... really helped me figure things out and made things a little bit easier for me." It also technically marked her first"Christmas Spectacular" performance."Back then, they would hire a local studio to do the opening number, and they hired my dance studio," Mesher says."I did the opening number for the Rockettes when I was like 11 years old."
"When I started to dive into the technique of the Rockettes in college, I fell in love with the diligence and the specificity of it," Mesher says."I kind of had tunnel vision for a bit." Several of her teachers at Pace were former Rockettes. Still, there wasn't anyone like her who had done it before to show that it was possible.
That day is shorter but in many ways more intense. Those auditioning repeat the combinations from the previous day, with the added pressure of knowing the artistic staff is looking at whether they've retained the corrections and details they've already been given. "I like to see women evolve a little bit in the audition process," says Karen Keeler, the troupe's creative director,"whether that's through several different auditions or just from the day and the callbacks."
At the end of this past January, Mesher broke her foot while dancing when she landed a jump wrong. The injury required surgery, crutches and a boot and kept her out of the studio for four months during her final semester of college. The next New York audition for the Rockettes was in April. She wasn't out of her boot in time for that one, so instead, she went to Atlanta at the beginning of May.
For the auditions held every April and August in New York, the line of hopefuls wraps around the building, located in Rockefeller Center. In total, roughly 1,000 women auditioned this season. Only 13 of those were offered positions, including Mesher, and that number is unusually high. Uniformity is the name of the game, and something as seemingly insignificant as a chin tipped at not quite the right angle can throw off a performance. The choreography dictates even the speed at which the dancers flick their fingertips. Those missing inches at the end of Mesher's left arm, in other words, could have presented a sticking point.
The organization posts her show schedule for community members who want to take their children with such disabilities to see Mesher perform."I try to meet them outside after the show and get a picture with them," Mesher says. "I do have things that have made my life more challenging," she says."I sometimes struggle with tying my shoes, but in the grand scheme of things, that's not really a big challenge. I have an issue with acting as if I've gone through this incredibly hard life."
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