There were probably fifty dancers on stage and they had a cute little dog house. They started dancing and they were REALLY good for three and four year olds. But then they started doing some questionable moves, like “pop, lock, and dropping.” We have a rule at my dance studio that there are no belly-showing costumes. There are some dancers and teachers who are uncomfortable in them and make some girls very self-conscious. I got the feeling that at this dance studio, if you were not a size zero or two you were expected to get to that size or you were out. I know the logic behind it, who’d want to watch a normal sized girl when you could watch one the size of a Barbie doll? One thing I’m grateful for, is Jeanine (the girl whose solo I posted), who won “So You Think You Can Dance” on season five was actually normal sized. She had a nice “hourglass” shape and was still an AMAZING dancer. She made girls of all shapes and sizes feel good about themselves. There was a girl out there who looked normal, and had the title “America’s Favorite Dancer.”
Anyway, these toddlers (because really, that’s what they were!) got done dancing, and a cute little girl from the dance went to her mom, who was sitting behind us, and started crying. I can’t recall why she started dancing, maybe because she messed up, or was tried (girls this age still take naps sometimes!) but she was very upset. Her mother started getting mad at her for no apparent reason, except that she thought her daughter was being stupid. She ignored her, and talked to her son, and totally ignored her daughter. One of the girls I danced with thought the girl’s mother was being stupid and said out loud (loud enough for the girl’s mother to hear) “Does she see her daughter crying? My mother would try to make me feel better if I was crying. I feel so bad for that little girl.” Obviously, she was trying to get the mother to comfort her daughter. Of course, the mother immediately picked up her daughter and put her in her lap.
I just shook my head (and still do) at these crazy mothers putting their daughters through this, and depriving their children a childhood. I started dancing when I was three years old also. My first dance competition I went to, I was maybe nine. All other girls at my dance studio go about the same age, sometimes they take seven year olds, and it’s all for the girls to experience if they like it, and see if, at that age, they would like to compete in the competing groups. We do not put them though the drama, and chaos of dance competitions at the age of three. It’s completely unnecessary and crazy.
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