- I'm Mindy Moeller.
I'm a Radio City Rockette and this is how I work it.
I'm going to take you through 24 hours
of my beauty and wellness routine.
The Christmas Spectacular season
is a total of three months long.
We learn the show in three weeks.
Over a million people come to see us perform.
We will perform up to 200 shows in eight weeks.
It's a lot, a lot, a lot.
But it's fun.
One of the most challenging aspects of the job
is the athleticism, it's exhausting.
But at the same time, I get to spend everyday
with some of my best friends.
We lift each other's energy up,
and that's the best part.
Good morning.
It is 9 a.m. and I'm ready to start my day.
I perform in the evening cast,
so I get to sleep in a little bit.
I do have two cats
so they like to wake me up super early in the morning,
which is, you know, tons of fun.
I love my cats but not at 5:30 in the morning.
Meow.
Around 9:00, 9:30, I wake up.
I usually preset my coffee
and I'll have a coffee with almond milk.
Washing my face, also a very important part of the day.
My skincare that I'll use is the Fresh Soy Face Cleanser
that's really, really great.
I feel nice and fresh.
Next, the facial spray.
I like the way it makes my skin feel.
That wakes it up.
I used the Fresh Youth Preserve Daily Moisturizer.
Okay, I'm ready!
Because we're burning up to 5,000 calories a day,
I definitely now, in season, eat four solid meals a day.
A lot of carbs and a lot of protein.
I drink three liters of water a day at least,
and what I really like to use is Liquid IV.
This gets me through multiple shows a day,
supposed to triple your hydration.
I will usually sit on the floor of my living room,
and I'll do my stretches and roll out.
Rolling out my shoulders, where I hold a lot of tension.
My hips as well.
You helping me out?
This will roll out my hamstrings.
They're gonna get a lot of work today.
The Rockettes have been around since 1925,
and the Christmas Spectacular has been around since 1933.
I actually auditioned three times.
The first audition, I got cut immediately.
I auditioned a second time a few months later.
Made it a little bit farther and still got cut.
Continued to train and train and train again
until the third audition, and got the call
that I was a New York City Radio City Rockette.
You have to re-audition every year.
Doesn't matter how many years you've been in the company.
I am in my eighth Christmas season,
and it's such an honor to be a part of
the ladies at the line.
Left my apartment.
Got all my belongings, ready to tackle the day.
Before I get to the theater,
I try to do some kind of physical activity
to really make sure that my muscles and my body is warm
and has already been used.
Take a yoga class, I will go into the lap pool.
Made it to the beautiful Radio City Music Hall
at my humble stage door.
Let's do this.
We have an athletic training department
that was created actually by a former Rockette.
There are ice baths in there, there's PT.
We have a really wonderful team of athletic trainers
and they help us warm, up cool down,
and deal with whatever injury
that we are currently dealing with.
So, there are two companies of women.
There's a total of 80 Rockettes split into 40:
one morning cast and one evening cast.
We do our own hair, we do our own makeup.
Our half-hour call before the show starts,
all Rockettes need to be signed in and stationary
in their dressing room.
It usually takes me about 20 minutes
to get from looking like this
to transforming into a Rockette.
I have a really awesome primer, it's ILIA.
It's a new clean makeup line.
You gotta shake it first, so I'll shake it first.
having to do up to two to four shows a day,
we have to constantly reapply, and I am breakout prone,
and it's like, super light
and it doesn't feel like I'm gunking up my pores.
After primer, then I will go into my concealer.
It's also an ILIA product, True Skin Serum Concealer.
Up to five shows a day, you know,
you get some nice little tired circles under your eyes,
but they're all out of love, yeah.
Huh.
Take my nice handy dandy sponge.
I put my hair up, it's getting in the way.
It's getting the way of magic creation.
It's usually, my top knot, it's like my power source,
I like to say.
Then I will go to a little powder.
This is Clinique, those little trouble spots that I have.
I get quite a few down by my neck as well.
We have a quite a few hat changes.
We have a reindeer hat, we have a soldier hat,
we have a rag doll wig, we have a Santa beard,
so there's a lot of action that happens
down and around the neck, so it's also really important
to keep that nice and clean and hydrated.
Each girl has a total of eight costume changes
from head to toe.
It takes a small village
to make the Christmas Spectacular happen.
Our wardrobe team is incredible.
There are three Rockettes for every one person in wardrobe.
I'm at stage level.
We have a nice quick change booth.
This is where most of the costume changes happen.
It's very much choreographed chaos backstage
where you say, "Okay, you're gonna put your shoes on first,
"then I'm gonna put my dress on,
"then I'm gonna put my gloves
"and my earrings and my hat on."
Our fastest costume change is a 72-second costume change.
So, we finish our iconic soldier fall.
[orchestra blaring]
And then the second that the music starts
for our next number, "New York at Christmas",
we're fiercely running off to the sides of the stage
so that we're all fully-dressed, ready to go back on stage
like it was no big deal.
By being a precision company, we all need to look alike,
so our hair and our makeup needs to be pretty identical.
They want us to be super fresh, not too much heavy makeup,
no, like, dark eye shadow.
I'll do a nice face on the eyelid, and then I'll even go up,
like right underneath my eyebrow line.
This one's as good as it's gonna go.
Then, I will take a little bit darker.
I'll probably mix between these two,
and then just to create a nice little shadow.
Less is more.
Just highlight what I already have.
After eight seasons, like,
there's definitely a couple shows that I get,
I have these nerves and it's, but it's not fear,
it's just, I'm excited.
If I'm nervous, it's just, I just care.
The first show where you have a live audience of 6000 people
and you feel that gorgeous contour curtain come up,
you get this wave of emotion,
and I remember being in my brown velvet leotard
and my nice opening reindeer pose,
feeling like these tears well up in my eyes
because it's such a magical moment,
and it's so surreal to think that
I've worked my entire life to make it
to such a coveted dance company.
So, yes, the nerves never, ever go away.
Doesn't matter how many times you've done this job,
they're always there.
I like to use a liquid eyeliner.
This is the Sephora brand.
I try to keep more brown and neutral tones.
I do have a little bit smaller eyes,
so I just do liner on the top.
I'm trying to keep the the bottom of my eyes
as open as possible.
Oh, it's a little shoddy.
The pressure is on. [laughs]
And then, I'll put on my lashes.
I'll usually use the same lash for a couple shows, for sure.
Every right Rockette wears eyelashes.
Radio City Music Hall seats 6000 people.
It's one of the largest indoor theaters in the world,
and so we need to project and have our faces visible
all the way up to the people that are sitting
in the third mezz.
Putting on eyelashes is not my best skill,
so please, no judgment.
Terrible.
While I let that set, I will go ahead and apply some blush,
and this is a Charlotte Tilbury.
You go around the circle, and then just a little boop
in the middle.
Just have a nice like, highlight of color.
Not too much.
And then, get my brows on.
I'm a really big fan of Anastasia.
It's like, a triangle tip where you can just color in more.
You remember back in the early 2000s,
the cool phase was just to have super, super thin eyebrows.
So, it took me a good 10 years to grow these back,
and now they're back and I love them.
Eyebrows are so important as a Rockette
because it helps you express.
Each number has its own personality.
You know, when we're wooden soldiers
we have very stern faces.
When we're reindeer, we're, you know,
we have this cute personality.
Within our tap number, "The Twelve Days of Christmas",
each day of Christmas has its own personality.
Eyebrows help us really emanate our facial expressions.
Just a little bit more finishing touch of mascara.
Add a little highlight to the bottom lashes.
It's really important to make sure that
with changing from one costume to the next
that my lipstick doesn't smudge or get on my face.
The Sephora lip stain, I'm a really, really big fan of.
The color.
Number one. [laughs]
Is it really the color?
Yes.
So, we're iconic for a pop of red.
This is also another ILIA product.
It's a setting powder.
It will help through sweat and the magic of Christmas.
Keep my face looking like a work of art.
And now, my makeup is officially done.
[sleigh bells jingling]
Okay.
So, it's inevitable that a girl will get sick or injured,
so a swing is who will step in at a moment's notice.
I am underneath the Radio City Music Hall stage
where all of the swings do their quick changes.
My nice finale costume, rag dolls.
Two different coats in case I need to go on
for whichever girl.
I'm brand new to it.
After experiencing this for my first year,
it requires a calm approach.
Here I am in the large rehearsal hall
at Radio City Music Hall.
This is where we get to prepare for our tracks
whenever we are thrown on stage.
Each swing learns nine tracks,
and I am learning five girls on stage right,
and four girls on stage left.
So, here we have the stage that's mocked out.
We have our solid and dotted colored lines
for our nice formations
and we have my nice swing book
that tells me all of the wonderful secrets
that I need to know.
I am five six and a half.
At the audition, once you make it past the first cut,
they will measure you
to make sure you are in the height requirements
between five six and five ten and a half.
The very first day of rehearsal, we'll take off our shoes,
and they will put us in a preliminary lineup,
and that will be according to
your shoulder height or your neck length
and that will essentially be your home
for the entire season.
The French twist is our iconic Christmas hairdo.
Every Rockette is responsible for creating her own twist.
This is our nice hair prep station,
so we have variety of pins, hairspray, wig caps.
Just in case.
There is a lot of sweating that happens in the show,
so I definitely at least try to rinse that out,
but in terms of actual shampoo and conditioner,
I try not to do it that much because the dirtier it is,
the easier it can be to pull your hair up,
and I'll use Amika dry shampoo.
It'll add a little bit more texture to it.
It'll keep the hold a little bit more.
We have free range in terms of
what direction we twist our hair.
I am a bottom to top.
The main unifying detail is that there is just no part.
We have to have it fully back.
New day, new twist.
See how this one goes.
So, I'll usually start holding my hair
in a nice, low ponytail,
and then I'll keep twisting,
and as I'm twisting it tighter,
I will slowly bring it up.
This is the trick.
I'll take me these two fingers, pinch the twirly part,
and then I'll twist it here,
and then I'll tuck the rest of my hair
underneath the twist that I just made.
I'll like, grab a piece of hair with a pin,
pull it out, and then I'll like, seal it back into my head.
It's like this kind of wrapping motion.
But in terms of hair color,
you can change your hair if you want
as long as it's a natural color,
but it just needs to stay consistent
to when you get your hat fitting.
With a lot of our hat pieces have horse hair
so that we can attach it
and it needs to match
whatever hair color you choose to have.
It's really important to keep some consistency
with the size of your twist
to make sure that your hats don't squeeze your brains out
'cause that definitely happens sometimes.
We love performing the Christmas Spectacular
on Christmas Day.
It's like, well, it makes so much sense. [laughs]
We get to be a part of every family's tradition.
My parents live in Kansas City
and my sister lives in Texas.
They come and spend the full five days
of Christmas week with me,
and that's something that's extra, extra special.
I never feel like I'm missing out.
People don't realize that
we actually do a lot of work outside of the season.
We do a lot of community outreach.
We are partners with Garden of Dreams,
which is a wonderful nonprofit
that does outreach to children.
We have the Rockettes Summer Intensive Program.
We teach young girls that want to be Rockettes
choreography from the actual show.
It's really a year-round job.
Let me do the final spray.
Oh, oh no, I got my tail, I gotta tuck my tail.
I always have this nice little tail left over,
and so this is the final piece
of putting away the Mindy Moeller hair extravaganza.
Five, six, seven, eight.
♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪
[laughs]
Christmas can start now.
Now, I'm ready.
Okay, so I'm in my reindeer costume,
just doing some finishing touches.
Zipping up my hoof, wig cap.
Finishing touch.
Now I am ready to celebrate Christmas
for 6000 people downstairs.
Let's go.
["Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"]
Before every single show, our dance captain
is giving us notes from the show before.
It doesn't matter whether it's the second week of shows
or the very, very last show.
We are constantly getting notes
to make sure that the quality of the show maintains
throughout our entire 200-show run.
Some ladies have tattoos.
I have one that's here,
and so I need to apply that with makeup and cover it up.
We wear a lot of tan tights.
We go through a pair a show.
A little trick that I do
is that I will cut five holes for my toes to stick out.
I like to grip the shoe with with my actual toes,
so I don't feel like I'm sliding in.
Definitely creeps out a lot of girls that I work with
'cause you look down and you just see
10 toes sticking out of a pair of tights, but it's my thing.
I love my thing, and it helps me get through a show.
The show is 90 minutes with no intermission,
and then we have a full 90 minutes
from curtain coming down to curtain then going back up.
Okay, just finished a first show of the day.
Definitely gonna take a nap.
We have an air mattress stored in our dressing room.
Very, very important to athletic training,
make sure that my body feels pretty good.
Take a nice break before the next show.
Definitely, eating a snack.
Definitely eating like, another meal.
We're having a snack of some my cereal, an orange,
and there's definitely a cookie jar selection.
I'll have one of those.
And then at half-hour, we start retouching up our makeup,
or retouching our French twist,
and then put on our deer unitard and do it all over again.
What I usually like to do,
especially if it's a four-show day,
I will completely wash my face off and I will start fresh.
Sometimes, especially when you're sweating so much
and you feel, you know, grimy and just,
it makes me feel like it's a brand new day.
We do up to 300 kicks each show.
It's a lot of kicking.
There's a whole stretching regimen
before and after the show
to make sure that I've come back to a nice home base.
After the show is over, I usually try to take off
all of my makeup at work.
I'm a makeup white lady
just to wipe the day away and all of the dirt and the sweat.
And then I will take a shower at work,
so then by the time I go home, I'm nice and clean.
I would just rather have it all done at the theater,
and then it's a nice kind of closing to the day,
and say thank you so much, like,
now I'm nice and clean.
I like Biolage shampoo and conditioner
when I do wash my hair.
I also use hair milk.
It really hydrates my hair.
I will wash my face with a Fresh Soy Cleanser and
a Fresh nighttime mask.
I will definitely roll out.
This is the last bit.
I'll put on very comfortable sweatpants,
a big winter coat, and then just take the train home.
Oh!
Home at last!
So excited.
Last thing I do. I just go to bed
and I just lay and I think I'm like,
"Wow, you did a good job today.
"That was good, that was a cool day."
I made it!
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Now, it's time to go to sleep.
Good night, Mona.
[jazzy piano music]