First Radio City Rockette with visible disability takes stage

For the first time in the dance troupe’s history, the Radio City Rockettes have a dancer with a physical disability in the kickline for the 2019 holiday season.

Sydney Mesher, who was born without a left hand, dreamed of becoming a Rockette since she watched the group dance in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV as a 6-year-old.

Now the 22-year-old is the first dancer with a visible disability to be a Radio City Rockette, according to the dance troupe.

Mesher didn’t make the cut in her first audition in 2018. But she made it in 2019 despite recovering from a broken foot in the months leading up to the auditions, she says in a Radio City Rockettes

YouTube video.

“She loved to perform, and she was never afraid of the moment,” says her father, Page Mesher.

The Oregon native attributes her strength and success to the support of her family throughout her young career. Mesher called her mother, Lynn Mesher, immediately after she was told she had been selected for the Rockettes.

“She’s sunshine, she’s energy, she’s passion. I just can’t wait to see her at the kickline,” Lynn Mesher said.

The professionally trained dancer performs just like the rest of the cast, making only a few adjustments in the “Christmas Spectacular.”

In the “Rag Dolls” dance, she still holds the oversized toy block

like her fellow cast members just from a different angle, she explained in the video.

In the “Here Comes Santa Claus” number, she holds one bell in her right hand instead of one in each, “but in the end it still creates the same picture,” she said.

Mesher is reveling in the opportunity to dance in America’s longest-running precision dance company, she says. At times, she’s been overcome with emotion, recalling when the troupe was rehearsing the finale that ends with Mesher looking at her upraised left arm.

“I remember just sobbing in rehearsal because, like, I’m so proud to be here, and it means so much for me to be here, and it’s one of those moments in my life where I’m, like, this is why I do what I do,” Mesher said.

Mesher wasn’t available to speak with CNN given her packed holiday performance schedule. The Rockettes perform four or five shows nearly every day of their holiday performance season, which ends Jan. 5.

Craig Ruttle/Associated Press Rockette Sydney Mesher, center right, takes part in a rehearsal on Oct. 22 at the Rockettes’ rehearsal space in New York.

Craig Ruttle/Associated Press Rockette Sydney Mesher checks an eyelash extension she has just put on in her dressing room on Dec. 2 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.