Many years ago, I saw a TV program about the Thanksgiving celebration in the United States. At the time, I knew very little about American culture. What struck me was a line of American girls dancing at the Times Square in New York City, kicking and swinging their beautiful long legs over their heads. It was not any kind of dancing I was familiar with, but the dance overflowed with the free spirit and enthusiasm that I had never experienced before.
It left a deep imprint in my memory. It was, of course, when I was still in China. It must be in the eighties, when China was just open to the west.
Now, I know this free-spirit dance is the Radio City Rockettes show. For more than three quarters of a century, the Radio City Rockettes has become the world’s most famouse precision dance. It appeared on numerous historical moments, from Super Bowl, to annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, to the 2001 Presidential Inauguration, the Rockettes have become an American icon.
This Thanksgiving, I had a chance to see the miraculous Rockettes with my American family in Chicago. I witnessed their famous eye-high kicks and spetacular precision dance with the same vigor and joy that first breathed the free spirit into my world.
To millions of people, the Radio City Rockettes is the legendary force of entertainment. To me, it is a dance of free spirit.