The Rockettes

It's been a running joke in the news in recent weeks that no artists of note will play Donald Trump's inauguration. It's a small consolation we have. He may become leader of the free world, but at least celebrities are still embarrassed to be seen with him. Fox News enumerated the many painfully public rejections Mr. Trump has faced, including the fact that “'Will and Grace' star Eric McCormack told The Wrap he would perform at the inauguration, but only in exchange for a lobotomy, adding: 'My whole brain removed from my head…I don’t know what the line-up will be, but I hear Scott Baio’s doing dramatic readings.'"

Not one to take such indignities sitting down, our plucky president-elect decided to stand up for himself on Twitter, as he is wont to do:

Celebrities aren't rejecting Trump. Trump's rejecting them!

While it's nice to cater to "the PEOPLE" who supported Trump (presumably they're in all-caps to represent their anger relative to the weak, liberal people who opposed him by a margin of roughly three million), the rest of the story doesn't quite add up. Anonymous sources reported being offered ambassadorships in exchange for booking talent for the inauguration. We're not able to verify that claim, but the denial from Trump's team is telling:

"'There is no truth to this insinuation,' said committee spokesman Boris Epshteyn. 'First-class entertainers are eager to participate in the inaugural events. The inauguration as a whole will be an exciting and uniting celebration of freedom and democracy. We will be releasing further details at the appropriate time.'”

If first-class entertainers were eager to participate, I imagine we'd have something better than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, a performer from reality show America's Got Talent, and, against many of their wishes, the Rockettes.

And this is the real rub. A group of dancers from New York, like most artistic communities, is comprised of diverse people living in diverse communities with friends who have been repeatedly demonized by the Trump administration in increasingly painful ways. When artists from Broadway's Hamilton asked Trump's vice-president to "to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us," Trump called it harassment and asked them to apologize. Respectfully asking for consideration by the incoming administration was viewed as an attack. The soon-to-be President of the United States said, in essence, "Shut your mouths and dance for me."

And now, a group of artists is being forced by their union and their ownership group to dance for the incoming president. If news reports stated that a group of dancers were being forced to perform before the incoming head-of-state, we would assume it was North Korea, China, or some other authoritarian state. But it's going to happen here in Washington, D.C. before President Donald Trump. The dancers will be paid for it, and it is a part of the contract that they agreed when joining the Rockettes and Madison Square Garden Co. But it's a terrible look for a president already dogged by allegations of fascist tendencies. If he cared about all of the people, and not just his "PEOPLE," he would personally make sure that no performer appeared against their own free will.

Edited (2:25 p.m. EDT): It appears that the performance has been made voluntary. There's a lot of contradicting information in these statements, and BroadwayWorld has been posting as they receive them. We'll try to update as more information emerges.