ABOVE: Nita Borchardt, left, and her former roommate and fellow Rockette, Jaime, stand outside the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Borchardt was one of hundreds of Rockettes who recently attended the 100th anniversary celebration. Submitted photo.

FAIRMONT– You may have just seen the Radio City Rockettes perform in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. A few weeks before that, the most prestigious professional dance company in the country was celebrating its 100th anniversary and among them was Nita Borchardt, a Fairmont native and owner of Borchardt Dance Company.

The dancing group was founded in 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri but since 1932 they have performed at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Borchardt was a Rockette from 2000 to 2010 and over that decade she danced nine seasons but took one year off to tour with 42nd Street.

During her time as a Rockette, the group still did traveling tours, though it stopped in 2015. There are now two casts in New York, the blue and the gold.

“Back when I was doing it, there was sit down cities, split cities and there were three years where they did arena tours and then New York of course. But now everything is condensed to New York,” she explained.

Borchardt did a little bit of everything over her decade including New York, two out of the three arena tours, split cities and sit down cities. She traveled to Seattle, Phoenix and Minneapolis for shows.

“The shows were six days a week. When we were on the road, we would do up to four shows a day because there was just the one cast. In New York they’ll have the first cast do three shows and the next do four. They can do up to seven or eight (shows) a day in New York City,” she said.

The season goes from September through early January. There are 36 dancers in a cast and a few “swings”.

Right now then there would be about 80 dancers who can proudly call themselves Rockettes who are among the best dancers in the country.

In celebrating 100 years, Borchardt said about 500 former Rockettes shows up in New York, the oldest of which was 95.

Borchardt explained that there is a Rockette Legacy and if you join, you’re given access to information and some other perks. It was this way that she found out about the reunion for the 100th anniversary celebration.

She admitted that she was a little hesitant about going at first, though.

“I’m here running the business and between that and my kids and their schedules, I wasn’t sure. Then my girlfriends were texting me about it so I decided to go,” Borchardt said.

She was able to go with her two daughters for just a quick trip but during that time was able to reconnect with some people from her past.

“My old director, two of them, were there. I was so young back then and very intimated I didn’t want to talk to them, I just did my job,” Borchardt said with a laugh. “But it was good to see them and feel like I could actually talk to them.”

On Nov. 19, there was a cocktail hour before a special show that was just for Rockettes and their family members.

“We had a gala on Friday night and there were dance classes throughout the week and a lot of PR,” Borchardt said.

Some of her old roommates and others she danced with were also there.

“Most of the girls that I talked to are still dancing or in the field somehow. A handful are preschool teachers and then teach dance at night. A lot are in health like pilates or fitness. A lot went down that road as well,” Borchardt said.

Having spent a decade as a Rockette is significant as Borchardt said her friend and roommate danced with the Rockettes for 15 years and the longest she knows of is 20 years but said she knows of another girl who just danced for one season.

Becoming a Rockette is not for the faint of heart as the audition process is very competitive. However, it’s something that Borchardt had aspired to do.

“When the Rockettes used to tour is when I first saw them in Minneapolis at the University and I turned to my mom and said ‘I want to do that someday,’ but I never thought I would. Then I was in high school getting ready to go to college and I told my dad I would be an accountant and he said, ‘I don’t think you want to do that.’ He asked me what I love to do and I told him I love to dance and he said, ‘then just do that,’ like it was the simplest thing in the world to do what you love,” Borchardt said.

She ended up going to Oklahoma City University and received a bachelors of performing arts degree. Soon after that she started her stint as a Rockette.

While she’s proud of what she’s done, it’s not something she’s talked about much, but she started to share it with her students at Borchardt Dance Company.

“They were very intrigued with it. I don’t like to talk about myself a lot, but I’m realizing with my younger kids that they don’t know what the Rockettes are and it’s my duty as a professional dancer to share that with them so I’m getting better at talking about it with them,” she said.

She’s going to take some time in December to spend a few minutes each class showing the students the Radio City Christmas Spectacular show so they can know more about the Rockettes.

While not all of her students will go on to do anything with dance, she hopes her experience teachers her students that goals and dreams are achievable when you put in the work and pursue it.