Dance Moms

This Molly Long discourse struck a chord!

I’m not a competition dancer, judge, or teacher, and never have been. If you’ve read me for long enough, you know I don’t talk about dance that much. Like most middle-class girls growing up in the suburbs, I learned tap, ballet, and jazz but stopped before high school when dance schools around me became hyper-focused on competition dance. Studios structured pricing and classes to make sure the girls on the team had the best time slots, classes, and schedules, and, slowly, anyone past age seven who couldn’t compete was phased out of the studio.

I tried out for the competition team. I knew my mom thought that competition dance was too expensive and not a healthy hobby for a young teenage girl to have. Still, she allowed me to try out. We both knew it wouldn’t become a problem and I wouldn’t be accepted into the team. By that point, I had turned my interests from dance to piano, handbells, and writing. Dance was fun but not something I felt drawn to. Almost fainting at the tryouts was sign enough to turn towards something else.

Still, competition dance as a universe fascinated me and many of my friends. A friend and I binged-watched Dance Moms and Bring It (Lifetime’s Dance Mom competitor that focused on majorette dancing) most weekends. Dancing on these shows seemed athletic and powerful, like gymnastics, cheerleading, or figure skating. Reality competition shows like So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Best Dance Crew, and Dancing with the Stars also focused on tricks and stunts. I didn’t see as much of an emphasis on dancing as a form of storytelling or artistry except when my parents took me to Alvin Ailey or to see the ballet.

All of these experiences arise for me as I think about the TikTok discussion of what is appropriate for kids to dance to at a competition. The discussion has circulated throughout the pandemic, but recently, some parents have become concerned about competition dance choreographer Molly Long. Some think her dances are too sexually suggestive for young girls in the “mini” category, ages 8-10. Gyrating, thrusting, and excessively showing their butts are some complaints I’ve seen made about these dances.

The situation reminds me of the time my mom and other parents at my dance studio raised a fit about whether or not our dance was appropriate. Except the dance wasn’t sexually suggestive; we were 6 Black pre-teens tap dancing to “Dig It” by D-Tent Boys with shovels. If you don’t remember, it’s the 2003 title song for the movie Holes, based on the YA book by Louis Sachar. In the movie and book, a young man is falsely accused of theft and sent to a juvenile detention camp where he and other boys are digging holes in the desert all day.

We were supposed to wear orange jumpsuits to match what the characters wore in the DCOM hit. However, my classmate’s mom saw the dance, movie, and costumes and immediately phoned every parent in the class to raise alarm bells. “It’s inappropriate to have black girls dressed like slaves for a dance recital.” Our costumes were immediately changed to jeans.

However, no one in our class ever felt shame about the dance. Our teacher, a white Italian mom and retired NYPD officer ran a strict classroom where dancing was a way for us to learn discipline, stage presence, and confidence, especially for young women. She chose popular radio Disney or DCOM songs for our dances because we could connect to the messages better. The next year after, she choreographed our recital dance to “Strut” by the Cheetah Girls. However, even with those best intentions, the optics weren’t great when the class was only Black girls.

I do remember feeling powerful dancing during this recital. This dance required a lot of syncopation while also staying together as a group. Our class had six people in it, so we also had to learn how to fill up the stage and the auditorium with our moves and sounds. She often complimented our class. At 10, we showed more focus and dedication than the teens in her later class. We were proud of how we looked by the end of that academic year with our dance and worked hard to get into the characters we saw in our favorite movie.

Our parents worried about how we would be perceived. What would girls in other classes think, their parents, or strangers? What if someone saw a video of six black girls dancing in jumpsuits and shovels; would they see the movie Holes or something else? In the end, parents do what they must to protect their kids from all threats. But also, those girls dancing to “Pop Muzik” know they look good and are hitting very difficult moves the way they practiced for weeks.