Television: "Dancemoms" on Lifetime

[Clara 76]

You couldn't look away it was this horrible train, bus, and car that wrecked into an airplane wreck-no way there will be any survivors, let along "employables"

 

Words have left me.................

[2dancing]

Not ashamed to say I did peek! I'm not sure I believe that much drama was not in part for the cameras, however I'm sure some of it was real. What struck me the most was the $16,000 price tag.

[Momof3darlings]

Yep, train wreck! But hard to look away.

[calamitous]

And it competes in the same time slot as Toddlers and Tairas which I thought was the worst reality TV parents could get. The price struck me too, $16,000/year. I think you can get child abuse a lot cheaper.

[Guest coupe66]

I am completely in the dark about this. Is this really a new series? What specifically is it trying to show? Is it about ballet or competition dance moms? We don't have cable, so I won't be watching anyway, but am trying to figure out what this is.

[Victoria Leigh]

I never heard of it either, coupe! Sounds like that is a good thing, though.

[Momof3darlings]

It's an inflated view of Dance Moms. While it takes place in a competition studio, it is not truly about competitions but about the owner who is over the top and the moms who are crazy to stay there if she's truly that over the top, but do because she can make their child a "star" and for them, that trumps ill treatment.

 

Here's the link to the trailer: Dance (ahem) Moms

[Anothermomtoo]

From the trailer, the owner/director of the studio appears to be a psychopath with an enormous ego/attitude. The parents are crazy to put their children thru that kind of abuse. The little pose the producers/directors had the studio owner make at the end of the trailer made me laugh. I think that they are all in the show for their 15 minutes of fame and the money regardless of how foolish they all look. I just couldn't bring myself to watch it. Sorry so blunt, but this kind of exploitation of children is shameful.

[learningdance]

Don't watch Toddlers and Tiaras and I won't watch this. Our country needs to establish new child labor laws. These pieces are filmed as "documentaries," but in reality they are driven by the production companies that drive the kids and their moms to the brink. Many of the tears are extracted by exhausting the kids and having them dance crazy hours. Evidently the production crew provided alcohol in the studio to the moms to fuel drama. They also script much of the conflict telling various participants, to say nasty things to each other and to play out confrontations and arguments.

 

I just won't watch because my watching gives shows like this ratings and I think that it should die.

 

It is a bunch of greedy adults taking advantage of children who are powerless to say no.

[Curandera]

I decided to watch the first show so that when someone asks me about real dance competitions, I would know what they were concerned about.

 

I am a dance mom and my dd has been with a "rhinestone" dance team for 5 years. I am "the" dance mom in our little community because my dd has been with the dance studio from the day it opened 6 years ago and every summer since. She has been on the dance team for 5 years since it started. I know that a recreational studio and dance team are not a good avenue for a professional dance career. We hope to get 13 yo dd in a pre-pro school this Fall.

 

But I will say that our experience was a lot of fun, a wholesome activity my dd and I shared. She never even wore one 2-piece costume, let alone anything inapprorpiate. When she was sick, she stayed home. Her SO never yelled at her and although some of the moms and I had drinks, it was after the day's competition and the girls were with a responsible adult having fun together as a team. She learned to perform with confidence and joy and made great, life-long friends. She saw some amazing dancers as well.

 

It was very hard to watch this show. Not so much about the crazy coach and moms. Any backlash against them is well-deserved. But I can’t believe that our country has sunk so low as to allow real children to be yelled at, made to rehearse sick and BURNED! for entertainment. These are not toddlers who are just cranky and uncomfortable in a crazy pageant dress. These are real girls with real feelings. This show should be cancelled immediately.

 

In some ways, I think this is equivalent to some of the documentaries that show ballet dancers being yelled at, starved and separated from their families in Russia. It is not descriptive of a ballet career. It is abuse.

[Momof3darlings]

Thank you Curandera! I wanted to say exactly what you've stated about DD2 once she left a pre-pro studio to focus more on jazz and tap (and still take ballet in a less demanding way). It is fun for her and while it may not equal to ballet training (and hers is good training), ballet was not for her but dance still was. And that's the reason she's there. None of what was featured on the show is the competition type studios my child has ever been in nor any of those of friends in other areas but we simply would not put up with that, nor participate in production coerced behavior for "stardom". While I'm sure production crews egg on ill behavior, it is a parental choice to engage to the manner these moms did.

 

We, as a nation unfortunately, have fueled this reality TV beast and I don't find all reality TV bad. But that which is bad, is awful!

[ellajuliet]

I just looked at the website for the show. It says that Abbie Lee opened her studio at age 14!

[GeeWiz]

DS was at a competition studio for 10 years and it was an amazing and positive experience. I only watched the trailer, but in all our years in the competition world I never saw anything like this. Surely that director is more actress than instructor!? Egad!

[booklover234]

My studio is a competition studio, but as some of my friends and I put it "we are a dance studio that competes, not a competition studio that dances." Honestly, if my studio had moms like that, the studio owners would probably ask them to leave.

I can't imagine being at a studio like that.

[LauraR]

Unfortunately there are extremes in any activity. They had the crazy birthday party show where people spent $10,000 on kid parties. There is the redneck wedding show. Apparently people like to watch extreme anything and mock other people. I do have family that competes in child pageantry. I am not a fan of it, but it is their choice. But I tell you, they are nothing like the Toddler and Tiara group (they were shown on stage in one episode, but not wacky enough to be a feature story). I do believe the producers find the weirdest whatever and then embellish the story and edit the footage to show the strangest portion that they can.