Dance Moms again!  Surely you jest.  That’s what I’m sure what of you think.  After seeing eight seasons of children being bullied and Abby playing favorites, I, for one, was glad not to have to watch it.  I’ll be honest, I only watched due to recaps but I missed Nia, Kendall and the other original girls.  Yet, in an interview on Virgin Media Television, Abby said that there would be a season nine and she’d be heavily involved  (https://youtube.com/shorts/Eklu9_-Ceak?feature=share).  She also talked about it on Entertainment Weekly in “Abby Lee Miller Gearing Up for Reality Return” (https://youtu.be/4ic4nUuQrnQ).  She’s even been quoted in print about it in “Abby Lee Miller Reveals Which ‘Dance Moms’ Alumni Are Invited to Appear on Her New Dance Show and Why Maddie Ziegler Is ‘Definitely Not One of Them’”  (https://www.theashleysrealityroundup.com/2023/03/31/abby-lee-miller-reveals-which-dance-moms-alumni-are-invited-to-appear-on-her-new-dance-show-why-maddie-ziegler-is-definitely-not-one-of-them/).  But with all this, she hasn’t revealed which network or any other details about the show.

Is this a good move?  Abby Lee has stated over and over again that she’s not the person we saw on network television. According to my friends from Pittsburgh, that isn’t quite true.  They tell me that she had bodyguards before the show premiered and went backstage and bullied dancers which were hinted at on the show.  If production made her do these things, then why did she lie about what she did before the show aired.  Also, if she’s solely in charge of the show, who will finance it.  A series is expensive, and we all know Abby loves money.  So we do not know the network (except it won’t be Lifetime) or production company (she says it won’t be Collins Avenue). I have to question and wonder what we can expect if the show is aired.  But let’s deal with a list of what shouldn’t be allowed.

Her Teaching Methods

Abby Lee Miller yells and screams at the girls if they don’t perform to her expectations and win, win, win!  It’s surprising that a woman who screams at the girls to “save the tears for your pillows” cries like a baby if she’s beaten.  And remember how she cried when she learned that Maddie and MacKenzie was leaving!  With the Ziegler’s, I have wonder if it was that Miller really cared for the girls or if cared more for her managerial fee.

My mom, who took me to dance class when I was young, mentioned something else.  To her the dances are more acrobatics than dance. When I danced, we had ballet, tap, jazz, and baton.  None of these required tumbling or standing on my head.  But my dance academy didn’t attend competitions.  Wait!  That didn’t matter.  I again took dance for exercise in the 1980s and saw no tumbling at that school either or in my college class.  Could it be, maybe, that my dance schools focused more on performing on stage?  Well, they did do the Nutcracker and have a young man perform in Cats on Broadway.

The Dances

When I watch the dances, I can see that Abby had originality.  She did come up with some good routines like ‘Where Have All the Children Gone,” “The Last Text,” and “Suicide Hot Line.”  And while I’m sure some numbers were movie inspired (and got a cut for promoting the movie), these often were hit and miss.

Another worrisome fact with the dances comes from the performances done.  Do we need eight to twelve year olds doing splits on chairs?  Do we need them turning to judges and exposing their underwear?  Do we worry about the pedophiles that could be watching?  People voice opposition to that!  Will Abby listen?

Well, Abby didn’t listen in to any suggestions.  In the episode “Bullets over Broadway,” the girls performed with guns to their mothers’ dismay.  I’ve heard rumors of dances that were all but banned.  With the culture in such flux today, could this happen again.  If Abby uses some of her past routines, I’m afraid people would run screaming.  If Abby tried to light matches, she would be accused to trying to start a fire.  There are other examples which I could give but this article is already getting long.  The “war dance” that starred Nia (but Maddie was front and center) also cannot be done because of the Native American costumes Abby chose.

Dances should inspire and entertain.  We know Abby can do these numbers, but can she do this while doing the production, the choreography, the costuming, and everything else?  Running a show requires executive producers (the money folks), producers, assistants, and in the case of children, people to oversee the child labor laws.  The child labor law was especially questioned with the original Dance Moms.  Abby wanted all the children to be home schooled.  While that was good for Abby, I wonder about their class work. While most of the original girls are attending college, I have to wonder how much of this is due to their parents’ diligence and their attitude to the girls studies.  Holly Frazier strongly supported a good education, and it shows that Nia is thriving at school.  Chloe also seems to be doing well.  Could this be because of the stance that both Holly and Christie took.

The Costumes

The costumes for Dance Moms ran the gambit.  We had the cute little character pieces where the costumes suited both the girls and the dance.  Yet, we had costumes that were deemed so suggestive that the episodes never will again see the light of day.  Strippers and nude costumes may have seemed to be a good idea to the show in the early days but I’m worried about today’s attitude.  Let’s also not forget that many of both the children’s and teens’ dances often appeared in nude leotards or bras and booty shorts.  Culture is judging everything today and taking strong stands. 

Dancers

While I could go on, this article is already long.  According to my Pennsylvania friends, dance studios have a habit of putting in a group of girls with similar characteristics.  If they have a featured dancer with light hair, then the dancers surrounding her will have light hair.  If they are slim, all others must be slim.  To Abby, you couldn’t pull her eye because she was looking for all Maddie’s.  To me, that is why Nia, Chloe, Paige and Brooke found themselves in constant trouble and on the bottom of the pyramid with Abby.  They didn’t look enough like Maddie to fit Abby’s vision.  Both Kendall and Kalani in later years met her view.

Abby also didn’t seem to understand that she needed to be inclusive of her dancers.  People talk about her treatment of Nia.  Watch the first season carefully folks!  Midway through that season, Abby started trying to get Nia off the show.  In fact, she hinted at it strongly more than once to Holly.  This was a running trend.  When Nia wanted braids, Abby yelled.  The only time she liked Nia was when a dance routine called for an “international performance.”  That’s where she put Nia in to be the star.

With so many people taking stands of inclusion, can Abby do it?  She already has been accused during the “Black Lives Matter” movement of treating the Hispanic and African-American dancers in a negative manner.  She actually apologized to some of them but still ignores Nia.  Can she move toward an inclusive environment or is the past too ingrained in her methodology?  I honestly don’t know.  She says she’s choosing dancers now.  We may not have long to wait.

Success?

I’m not even going to speculate on whether a new Dance Moms season will work.  It’s too hard to judge with all that has gone on in the world since Dance Moms aired.  We have had movements which already had called Abby out.  Did she learn anything?  Since she only wants to see JoJo on her new show, we know she doesn’t want the others to share.  That, in itself, is troubling considering some of the YouTube influencer videos I have seen Nia do.  Nia has proven that sight limited and others who wouldn’t stand a chance in Abby’s dance world is performing and making a difference.  I guess only time will tell if Abby can adjust.  Will I watch?  It depends on the promos and honestly my mood.