You Might Think That...

Welcome to my first blog post! This blog will include recaps of noteworthy episodes starting from season 3 but mostly random articles of my random thoughts/opinions about the show. I definitely wish I started this blog sooner because I have A LOT to say about how the life of a dancer is portrayed through this dramatic show based on my own experience. I love tuning in every week since this show began and I have so much respect for all of the staff of ALDC, the mothers, and especially the INSANELY talented little dancers. With that said, I'm going to play a slight catch-up and my first post will be a list of the many misconceptions about the dancers, the moms, Abby, and the Abby Lee Dance Company up to this point.

1. The girls have plenty of time to rehearse. This couldn’t be more wrong. Competitive dancers have a lot of rehearsal time for their routines. On the low range, a competition team may rehearse one number about an hour a week. This is not to say that competitions teams only have one number. Most dancers are in multiple routines therefore multiplying rehearsal time. Remember, this is on the LOW end and these are the girls who tend to do poorly at competition. The Dance Moms girls rehearse an average of 6 hours a day, everyday to learn a few routines and then start the process over again once the weekend is over. This is a little less than the length of a school day. Add about 7 hours of school to 6 hours of dance. How much time does that leave for a nine year old to study for their tests and do their homework? 

2.  The pyramid is real. I really want to hope that this is self explanatory. No dance teacher in their right mind would ever rank their students. This is purely for television.

3. The mothers choose to spend all day in the viewing room.  I can almost guarantee that the mothers are contractually supposed to be in that room while their daughters are in class, or at least for a certain number of hours during the week. A normal dance mother simply drops their child off at dance class and returns once the hours of class are over. Think about it... if all of the mothers of a group of 12 girls sat in the same room for hours on end, there would OBVIOUSLY be unnecessary fighting. There are some moms that will stay the full time their child is in dance class but they are usually preoccupied with a book, newspaper (who am I kidding we live in 2012!), a cell phone, and/or an iPod. It is fun for a mother to be able to watch their child dance and parents will stay and watch for a little while. It can be to watch their children’s progress or to make sure their child is behaving. But most dance parents have other obligations such as other children to attend to with their various activities (Christi has a 2 year old daughter, Kelly has a son, and Holly has two more sons), or a job.

4. Attending a new competition every week is normal. On the low end, competition students attend 3-5 regional competitions a year. It may occur that there are a few competitions in a row (one weekend after the other) but the students perform the SAME routines they have been working on all year. Also, travel time is usually no longer than an hour.

5. Abby Lee Miller is the only dance instructor at Abby Lee Dance Company. Dance Moms does not show any of the other staff besides Gianna Martello. We see very brief glimpses of her in every episode but what viewers may not realize is that she is responsible for a majority of the choreography you see. As a matter of fact... if you pay close enough attention you can tell which routines are Gianna's and which ones are Abby's.

6. Reality television rules do not apply. Lets be real. How many times have you watched a reality show and at some point afterwards the cast members try and explain how they are filmed for hours upon hours and it is only “edited” into a short hour. It is very easy for production to find all of the awful 5 minute segments of screaming and put them together to look like a continuous 20 minutes when in reality, every instructor gets frustrated and might lose their temper. 

7. Those 7 children are the only students at ALDC.  Abby not only has to deal with those seven girls in their classes and rehearsals but also has an entire studio to run. There are hundreds of other kids who go to that studio for dance instruction, and while dealing with the Lifetime cameras and mothers reacting to certain situations (some times over-reacting). She has a lot on her plate... give the woman a break! Also, there are other students at ALDC that compete. Abby must manage a weekly schedule for the “Dance Moms” students but also a regular competition season for the rest of her competitive students. Another note regarding the amount of students she has; she also has students who only are there for technique, improvement, or fun. She holds recreational classes where students only perform at an end of the year show case.

8. The dance moms should just take their children elsewhere. When you have a child as talented as Maddie, Chloe, Nia, Paige, Brooke, Mackenzie and Kendall there is no better studio fitted for them IN PITTSBURGH. In some areas such as Long Island, Miami and Los Angeles there is a much wider array of options regarding studio choices. Where I grew up in Long Island there are extremely competitive studios within blocks of each other. If a mother disagrees with a studio owners policies, they can simply move if they chose to do so. I can confidently say that ALDC is the best studio in Pittsburgh. I find it hard to believe that there are any other high profile studios in that area, unless the mothers would like to move or drive hours and hours everyday for their child’s dance instruction. The kids may have also formed special bonds with other students at the studio and other instructors who would be very difficult to part with. On top of that... Abby does have a physical contract with the title winning students at her studio, rightfully so.  


Did I miss any? Comment below!