Dance Moms was one of the biggest reality TV shows ever in the last ten years. Everyone knows it’s about a toxic dance teacher coaching junior and senior dancers with their opinionated mothers. The show’s latest episode aired in 2019, but a new twist to the show has recently been released. The ” MadHouse ” show, instead of the age group being mainly 9-17-year-olds, is now showcasing professional adult dancers to test their abilities to see if they are ready to join Abby Lee Miller’s new dance team. These contestants are looking for their first paying job in the dance world. According to the trailer, quarrels between housemates are very much anticipated due to the competitive nature of the house. The show premiered on September 29th on the new Brandon TV streaming service. It is now also available on Vudu, Amazon Prime, and Tubi. This is very similar to Dance Moms, except it was mainly the moms who spoke up to Abby about her negative teaching style. As a dancer, seeing dance moms at a young age changed my view of the dance world in a big way.
The show made it seem like every teacher and dance world is toxic, too. Although there are still negative people in the dance world, the show exaggerated much of the drama for views. As someone who has met a handful of the cast and danced with some of them, I always ask them if the drama is real. They always say that the show dramatizes the fights for views. This changed my outlook on the show because when I rewatch it, it is obvious how staged some of the arguments were. Since I was a competitive dancer for five years, I can say I’ve had my fair share of seeing a lot of similarities and differences in the dance world as dance moms displayed it to be. There are some crazy dancers, moms, and coaches in the picture, but it is not as exaggerated as the show makes it seem. The only fundamental similarities I noticed are the amount of time and effort it takes to be a dancer, and it goes unnoticed by the outside world. I would be at the studio for 20+ hours a week, and it would be even more during competition season. I had to do this while juggling all of my schoolwork at once. While most of my coaches were friendly and fun, I also had a rigorous teacher. She was never as toxic to her kids as Abby was, though. While I can understand you want your dancers to reach their highest potential, Abby Lee Miller was very personal when criticizing most of the girls and often favored certain people over others. At first, I aspired to become a professional dancer. I visited multiple dance schools like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, Debbie Allen Dance Center, and many others. I found out that professional dancers only make around $30,000 a year. This is sad to see since dancers put in so much effort and dedicate their lives to the art and barely would be getting paid what is considered a well-paying salary. I would think that shows like Dance Moms could have had a positive impact on how much dancers are respected in the workforce since it became so popular, and as someone who has been dancing since I was 4, it’s sad to see that dance isn’t as appreciated as it should be.
