UPDATE: Individual Rockettes who don’t want to perform at the Inauguration no longer have to. Except maybe some do? It’s confusing. More here and here.
Last night I announced I would be starting a new series of posts devoted to ways we all can Resist Trump Every Day in our own little ways. In this, the first installment, I’d like to draw your attention to a small protest with a great symbolic power.
As you may already know, Trump’s people have been having trouble finding big name acts to perform at his inauguration — though they have managed to snag an 80s cover band called The Reagan Years. No, really.
So when Trump’s party planners signed up the Radio City Rockettes, the legendary high-kicking dance troupe, there must have been some big sighs of relief in the Trump camp.
At least until some of the Rockettes said hell no, we won’t go. And their union, according to media reports, replied by telling them that hell yes, they have to go.
According to Vulture.com,
many Rockettes dancers, who share in a Broadway community that vehemently opposes Trump, do not feel comfortable performing at the event. Now, Broadway World has obtained an email reportedly from the American Guild of Variety Artists, the union that represents the Rockettes, suggesting that full-time employees will be coerced into performing, whether or not they object.
Lovely.
Per the site, the aggressively worded email from “a high-ranking member of the union’s administration” says: “We have received an email from a Rockette expressing concern about getting ‘involved in a dangerous political climate’ but I must remind you that you are all employees, and as a company, Mr. Dolan obviously wants The Rockettes to be represented at our country’s Presidential inauguration, as they were in 2001 & 2005. Any talk of boycotting this event is invalid, I’m afraid.”
As Amanda Duarte, a writer and performer who has taken the Rockettes’ case to social media, has observed, this is a pretty Trumpian situation indeed.
“It’s perfect, actually,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
What could be more fitting for this inauguration than forcing a group of women to do something with their bodies against their will?
Duarte is encouraging people to contact the show’s producers as well as the American Guild of Variety Artists and the Madison Square Garden Company to express their support for all of the Rockettes who want to boycott Trump’s big party.
Email the producers directly:
[email protected]
[email protected]Call AGVA (American Guild of Variety Artists)
as well
212-675-1003
make sure you express that if a Rock does not wish to perform, she shouldn’t have to and there should not be a repercussion.
Be firm, but polite. Help the boycotting Rockettes to just say no to Trump.
Re: union’s ‘get-out-there-‘n-hoof-it’ decree… This is a UNION?!
Yeah, what kind of union is that? You’re supposed to represent your members who have grievances against their employer, not act as extra muscle for the employer!
Also, I was surprised that the Rockettes are still around. If I were organising this event, I don’t think I’d want such an anachronistic act on the bill.
Yeah, I have to say yhat regardless of who was being sworn in, a group of young women doing the cancan doesn’t strike me as the most appropriate thing for an inauguration. Apparently they’ve performed at previous ones but…WTF?
I’m not surprised by the union’s response. Nor am I surprised that apparently the only way they can get well-known performers for this thing is to pick on ones that are under contract.
Oh the irony of the Union telling the women they HAVE to do it:
‘Labor leaders, who spent almost $100 million campaigning against Trump, said after the election they’d give him a chance to deliver on his pro-worker agenda. But the cease-fire eroded in the last two days.
First, Trump blasted an Indiana union boss personally on Twitter, prompting a blistering response from labor leaders. Then he announced his choice for secretary of the Department of Labor is fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, a union critic who’s even floated the idea of automating his restaurants to avoid worker costs.’
Does the Guild not know this?!
Yeah, for dubya.
Here’s our letter!
Like many Americans, we just read about your scheduled Rockette’s performance for Trump’s inauguration. We find it most disturbing that your organization, a long-standing American institution, would threaten its women and force them take such a controversial and demeaning job against their will.
We hope you will reconsider this stance, and that our fellow American women are able to keep their positions – and their dignity -without repercussion.
Please keep in mind that the message you send to each individual Rockette is the message you send to each individual American girl – including your own daughters.
Yeah, I think Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I think Marine Corp Band, I think blues or opera singers hitting the high note on The Star Spangled Banner, I think little kids singing patriotic hits. I do not think of the Radio City Rockettes, although I’m sure their show is great.
Quote from Johanna’s link
This.
I am heartened by all of the acts refusing to perform for this White House squatter, but the ones who do perform have a fair chance of getting a pass on any (or much) condemnation from me.*
The performing arts are tough for everybody, but especially for the vast majority of them who don’t have name recognition, it can be hard to turn down opportunities like this.**
*unless they’re someone like Ted Nugent
**even though this is probably a special case where the downsides of the gig are pretty obviously a potential detriment to one’s career
But apparently not for Obama.
“Apolitical,” my left foot.
Sorry, I missed that you had asked this.
I’m getting notifications now. Thanks.
The Rockettes are very class act and represent New York and Radio City. Having them preform for the president elect who sees woman as objects and disrespects them is very demeaning for the Rockettes.
Unless the owner himself is a member of the Trump Club. To say there will be no repercussions if they don’t dance is utterly ridiculous. There will a lot of write ups giving for simple things then after three or four the pink slip will come.
Do what is right and respect the women that work for you and the Rockette name.
I will NEVER EVER go see the Rockettes ANY TIME I am in NEW YORK. Grow up kids!!!
I like your approach to your resist Trump everyday. I think more resistors are like you but the media picks up on the protestors making a scene.