MEPHISTO WALTZ:

The dancer next to Mary was crying. Tears streamed down her face through all 90 minutes of their world-famous Christmas Spectacular as they kicked and pirouetted and hit mark after mark on the glittering Radio City Music Hall stage. This was Thursday, three days before Christmas, the day the Rockettes discovered they'd been booked to perform at the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

"She felt she was being forced to perform for this monster," Mary told MarieClaire.com in an exclusive interview. "I wouldn't feel comfortable standing near a man like that in our costumes," said another dancer in an email to her colleagues. [...]

Controversy hit within hours of the announcement last week that the Rockettes will perform at the presidential inauguration on January 20, an event that's been contentious already, between the very public refusals of so many celebrities to participate and the Twitter drama Trump himself has stirred up about it. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the swearing-in of one of the most polemical presidential candidates in American history is proving to be just as divisive as he is.

"We actually found out through text messages from friends," Mary says of being blindsided by the news. "They sent me screenshots of CNN, where the screen said: 'Rockettes to Perform at Trump's Inauguration.'" Some dancers lashed out immediately on social media. Then an email leaked from the dancers' union, the American Guild of Variety Artists, reminding the women that they were contractually obligated to perform. Their jobs were at stake.

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