<p>Ugh. You are most likely correct, LasMa. </p>
<p>My d’s studio was nothing like this traumatic. Very serious dancers and the director could be pretty tough. And the company members really had no chance to have a life outside of dance. But it was nothing like this show…I really hope they somehow set things up to be much worse than they really are there. For those kids’ sakes!</p>
<p>Re Cathy, Vivi-Anne’s mom – I did a Google search, and her studio is 110 miles from Abby Lee’s.</p>
<p>I have never watched it, but D (who was a competition dancer) saw it for the first time yesterday. She thought it was strange that the studio had only one teacher and if these moms were so unhappy, why not change studios? D also wondered why the girls were learning new dances a week or two before the competition, her studio worked for months on them. She never saw the kind of drama at her studio that is shown here. But I guess this is what appeals to viewers.</p>
<p>The Cathy storyline is ridiculous. An earlier poster theorized that Cathy lost out on the show at her studio, and is doing this for publicity. It really doesn’t make sense that a dance teacher is driving that far to get her child’s instruction from another teacher.</p>
<p>Not only that, when would she have time to make the drive and teach at her own school? What does it look like to her own students if she is taking her own daughter to be trained elsewhere?</p>
<p>I thought maybe Cathy just ran a toddler school and that is why she needed someone else to train Vivianne, but from Candy Apple’s website, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The sad part is that Vivianne doesn’t even seem to enjoy dance that much.</p>
<p>My daughter refuses to watch the show, but I enjoy the train wreck, so I watch!</p>
<p>I just watched for the first time. The girls are so talented and the moms are so awful. I was a ballet mom and hanging around the studio with other moms was never this nasty.</p>
<p>Here’s the sad thing - it could have been a fascinating show with enough drama and entertainment value to go around if the producers had just filmed a high-end dance school, without inventing all the ridiculous storylines and manufactured conflict every week. Those of us who are current or retired dance moms know that every studio has its share of conflict, enmity, favoritism, kids with real talent, etc. But, as several posters said at the beginning of the thread, normal people (even normal dance moms) don’t put their children or themselves on display in this kind of trainwreck. </p>
<p>Fakefakefakefakefake.</p>
<p>The show where all the moms went to get botox together… REALLY?</p>
<p>And they FLEW to a Starpower REGIONAL in Providence? Why? StarPower has regionals all over the country! There must have been one closer to their home studio. Our maximum distance for regionals was a 3 hour drive, and it was usually closer than that. </p>
<p>Also, the girls kept saying they needed to “win” the regional to qualify for Nationals. Uh…no. All you have to do is get a certain level award - which virtually everyone does - to qualify for Nationals. These competitions are for-profit companies - the more people that come to their Nationals, the more money they make. (Unless they were trying to qualify for some special extra thing at Nationals…)</p>
<p>And learning new routines for every regional - really? We used the same routines for an entire season. </p>
<p>Watched this show twice, will not watch again. I feel really sorry for the girls. (Someone somewhere is teaching them well though… these girls are great dancers).</p>
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<p>Plus, every competition has Nationals. It’s not as if there’s one national title. But you wouldn’t know that from watching this show.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you why these parents agreed to do the show despite coming off as total kooks with an out-of-control dance teacher. Have watched all episodes so far, and in the individual interviews you’ll hear most of them (kids or parents) say that they want to become a “star,” or the their child is born to be a star etc. Some of these girls are amazing dancers, but I think the parents are banking on this show giving their child the big break and getting dragged off to Disney Channel or whatever.</p>
<p>Also interesting to observe, at least three of the moms were wanna-be dancers, two were former students of Abby, though I can’t for the life of me figure out the math on that one. These women seem to be projecting their lack of success in the field onto their kids. Sad.</p>
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<p>My sister is adicted to show and was asking D and I if the dance competition world is really like that. We pretty much said not in the least.</p>
<p>At the end of the last episode I saw, the teacher was telling the moms the intense travel schedule. We always got the travel schedule at the very beginning of the season. We never had to travel more than an hour away for competitions, except when everyone wanted to do nationals somewhere else just for fun.</p>
<p>We have actually competed over the years against Abby Lee’s and Candy Apple. We never saw any of the drama that we have seen on the show, but maybe we just didn’t interact with many of them or something. From what I have heard through many grapevines is it is all staged for the most part. Kathy from CA agreed to do the show and to be as outrageous as possible. She is playing a role. There are many other studios in the area, but with all the tunnels, etc it is really hard to get around in the Pittsburgh area. However, Abby has trained many wonderful dancers. The older ones that I do know are sweet, kind, and amazingly well-trained dancers. So, she does turn out good dancers but at what price. I also would not want my dancer going to a studio where if she wasn’t one of these elite few would she truly get the attention she needs and deserves.</p>
<p>And what about the costume problems? An experienced teacher/director would have had costume fittings long before the competition; there is no sewing of costumes the day of the competition. Well, there are repairs being made if a costume had a rip, or sequins fell off, but no one is handed a costume an hour before going on stage. The girls would have had rehearsals in the costume to make sure they looked good during the dance.</p>
<p>Our studio also never traveled far for a competition; there were plenty offered several weekends a month within an hours drive that there was no need to go far. We had the schedule and the dance to be performed at the beginning of the season. At that time we knew the entrance fee as well as any charges for the season. Our studio did not do solo dances often, so that would be the only addition to the season that might be added on. </p>
<p>I assume that Abby has other levels compete in the competitions, although these are not shown on the show. If her school is that competition driven, then she must have several groups go often. Because I believe she has other groups, I don’t understand the 6 year olds, and Brook, the 12 year old being in the same group. The little ones are obviously not the caliber of the 9 year old, so why aren’t they with their own age group? I can only guess because one of the 6 year olds is the sister of one of the top students, that her mother wanted both to be on the show. It has been a long time since I have attended a competition, but usually I thought the age groups were tighter. I don’t remember seeing a 6 year old and 12 year old in the same piece.</p>
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That sometimes happens in large group numbers but is extremely rare for small groups. Competitions vary, but typically a “large” group might be one with more than 10 or 12 dancers. You wouldn’t ordinarily see it in a small group (6-8 dancers) because the goal would be to have dancers performing at the same level, and usually dancers close to one another in size.</p>
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<p>The studios my daughter attended charged extra to choreograph a solo or duet piece – so basically girls did as many solos as their parents were willing to pay for. One solo piece lasted for the entire school year/competition season. If someone had more than one solo piece, it would generally be in a different genre – that is, a student might do a tap solo and a lyrical solo. Everything was done well in advance. </p>
<p>The only exception would be if a studio had a dancer who was exceptionally gifted, or sometimes with boys. Then the dance teacher would be motivated to showcase the gifted dancer – perhaps offering “scholarships” to keep that dancer at their studio. Boys were simply valued for being male, especially in later years when partnering became more important.</p>
<p>I did watch the program for the first time yesterday (my daughter apparently thinks it is uproariously funny, probably because she was paying more attention to the back stage drama at the studio she attended when she was a kid). NONE of the girls featured comes close to being as gifted as the ones who garnered special attention at the studios I mentioned, though the little 8 year old certainly has potential. </p>
<p>I did see dance moms who were willing to pay a lot of money to have their daughters have several solos and/or duets each year, and also quite willing to move their daughters from one studio to another if they didn’t feel that their daughter was getting the attention or starring role they coveted. Typically, their daughters weren’t particularly good dancers. But in a large studio there might be a small handful of moms like that --I think they were tolerated because they also tended to be the ones willing to do the most work to help out with back stage and rehearsals, etc. </p>
<p>I’d note that no one who is seriously interested in dance – and has serious talent – would be spending much time with that type of studio, learning the lyrical and jazz type routines that typify competitions. The studios don’t offer the quality of training that can be had at a pre-professional ballet studio, and they don’t offer the type of prep in modern dance that colleges are looking for in their programs. If you are seriously interested in pursuing dance as a career, then you are going to focus on building a solid foundation through a studio focused on technique – the last thing you would do would be to spend a lot of time traveling and choreographing new numbers.</p>
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<p>A close relative’s D seems to be a talented dancer (at least it appears that way to me and a few others in the family who do know something about dance). The D dances with studios who perform in dance competitions; she has been participating for the last 3 years (prior to that she was in a pre-professional studio for 5 years). The Mom keeps moving her D from studio to studio because (according to Mom) her D isn’t getting challenged and isn’t growing as a dancer. The D has been in 3 studios in 3 years. The Mom definitely doesn’t keep quiet and will complain when she feels the D isn’t being challenged, which seems to mean Mom think’s D is not getting enough attention. In fact, this weekend Mom was telling me that at the new studio she had to call the first week because in one of the group routines/dances the D wasn’t doing very much at all. </p>
<p>The D, who is now 13, thinks she might want to pursue dance professionally. She tries out for the kids’ parts in the Nutcracker, which is put on by the ballet in her city. Each time she’s tried out, she got a part.</p>
<p>If there were a way to tactfully make suggestions to the Mom about the D’s future in dance–what would you suggest? Go back to a pre-professional studio and ditch the dance competition studio? How does one find a studio that focuses on technique? My relative (the Mom) keeps telling everyone that lots of professional dancers come from these competition studios. Current studio owner, according to Mom, was a former Rockette. What do college dance programs think of these?</p>
<p>My D is at a competition studio, but is an average dancer. The director’s choreography is such that dancers of different abilities contribute to the number according to their ability. So there is no drama about someone getting a coveted role.</p>
<p>I find at our studio, the girls that go on from there tend to join the dance or cheerleading groups of professional sports teams. Or they get certified professionally and go into teaching.</p>
<p>From our competition studio I can think of a half-dozen girls off the top of my head who have gone to college as dance majors. One majored in Musical Theater, worked on a cruise ship and is now touring nationally with a featured role in Cats. Another spent two years dancing for an NBA team and now does choreography for them, as well as other professional dance work. One danced at Disney, then became a dance captain for a theater in Branson, MO. </p>
<p>I think it helps that our studio put a heavy emphasis on ballet and technique. The girls spend several hours per week in ballet. Maybe that’s why we don’t learn new routines for every competition - so the kids can spend more time in ballet classes. </p>
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I think that’s really important. Our director was really good about moving formations around so that different people were in the front, even if it was just for the “easy” part of the dance. My daughter struggled with turns, so she’d be doing a balance move or something else while another group onstage was turning. A talented choreographer can write for all ability levels and make them all look good! (Or at least keep them from looking bad).</p>
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Yes, but what part? Those local productions of Nutcracker often try to be very inclusive – and they often choreograph very simple parts for children.</p>
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Honestly, if the d. is age 13, I think you should talk to the daughter. The first question is what kind of dance does she want to study. A pre-professional ballet studio is generally going to expect a student to be taking class 4-5 days a week, at least – at that age. Class placement is usually audition based. </p>
<p>It’s not a problem in and of itself if the studio occasionally participates in competitions; the issue is whether the studio focuses heavily on the competitions. My d. started at a studio that taught all sorts of dance & was somewhat competition-focused, and later moved to a pre-professional ballet program that occasionally participated in competitions – and where she participated in the only competition that really mattered. (Youth America Grand Prix, a ballet competition, which is quite different from what you see depicted on Dance Moms.) </p>
<p>The students who go on to succeed professionally after spending time at the Dance Moms type studio usually have supplemented their training extensively, either at other studios or through participation in other dance troupes.</p>
<p>“I find at our studio, the girls that go on from there tend to join the dance or cheerleading groups of professional sports teams. Or they get certified professionally and go into teaching.”</p>
<p>My daughter danced on a competitive dance team at a local studio. The first time they had graduating seniors in that group they went to Harvard and Stanford. Next year UCLA, Princeton, and USC. It continued on like that with the last year I attended the show (the year after my daughter graduated) the seniors were attending Stanford(2!), Brown, Notre Dame, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and NorthWestern. In the seven years I saw the announcement of where the graduating competive dancers were going, I never saw one heading to less than a top 50 school. The most common school was UCLA. Despite doing well in the competitive dance world, these young people didn’t intend to have a career in dance.</p>
<p>I always wondered if learning the many, many dances these kids would pick up in many different styles helped their concentration and memory skills that made them such high achievers academically. Would have been a good study…</p>
<p>My daughter also started out at a studio that participated in competitions, but only a few a year. The studio offered ballet, jazz, tap and acro and my daughter took every class she could. At the age of 8 she knew she wanted to focus on ballet, so she moved to a prepro ballet studio. There she took ballet and character dance, but really missed her tap class at the old studio. For 2 years she would continue to take tap at her old studio, but by the age of 10 she just couldn’t keep up with both studios. While she hated giving up tap, she knew she couldn’t waste a day away from the ballet studio, so tap was dropped. </p>
<p>Some years jazz was offered at her ballet studio, but it was nothing like the “real” jazz she had at the old studio. True ballet dancers just don’t more in the same way as those trained in jazz. A few of the girls was good, but most were ballerinas and those jazz move just didn’t look the same on their bodies!</p>
<p>I agree at 13 the daughter should know what type of dance she wants to continue with. If she enjoys the competitions then she should know what school she would like to be at; the same if she would rather be at a prepro school.</p>