And who do you see as soon as you get into the Repeat Offenders section? Former Dance Moms stan account moderator Holly Mitchell in her Deputy Editor’s chair, ready to give us some insight into the kind of ‘unhinged’ that she knows best; the likes of none other than Abby Lee Miller.
A dancer’s life is far from pretty. Constantly battling blisters and sweat-stained leotards? A lingering fear of forgetting your choreography while being struck in the eyes with stage lighting? Yeah, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. This is something I can attest to myself from a childhood spent perfecting my turns and chewing my nails before every performance. Now if I had to imagine dealing with all of that while being televised to the nation, with my dance teacher’s words haunting me as they are repeated back years later as memes? I really cannot fathom how the now young women of Dance Moms (2011-2019) did it.
If the names Jojo Siwa or Maddie Ziegler ring a bell, this will be a sweet little stroll down memory lane for you. They are just two of Dance Moms’ alumni, a Lifetime reality television show that began in Pennsylvania, showcasing young girls on their journey to stardom in relation to the world of dance. The catch? The mothers of these girls would often kick up quite the fuss with their dance teacher: one Abby Lee Miller of the Abby Lee Dance Company (ALDC).
If you were to sit down and watch the very first ten minutes of Dance Moms, you would immediately recognise Miller’s problematic methods of teaching. This includes but is not limited to a) ranking her dancers from “best to worst” every episode on what is known as the pyramid, b) her blatant favouritism towards “Dance Mom” Melissa Gisoni’s children Maddie and Mackenzie, and c) calling her dancer’s bent legs “about as straight as Elton John”. And yes, this all occurs in the first ten minutes of the show!
So, you might wonder, what happens by the end of that episode? Miller and “Dance Mom” Christi Lukasiak argue about the latter’s daughter Chloe (who is the absolute sweetheart of Dance Moms, no doubt about it) and a headband that had fallen down and over her eyes while she was on stage. Despite her daughter being a pro and dancing through it, Lukasiak is berated by Miller for not “sewing the headband into [Chloe’s] head”. Lukasiak states that it was a mistake and that she’s only human. Without missing a beat, Miller replies: “You are. Mistakes like that don’t happen to me”.
Unhinged? You guys want to read about ‘unhinged’ this issue? Look no further than Miller herself, the very definition.
Here is the gist of every single Dance Moms episode: Miller screeches at her young dancers, the mothers fight against it, and Miller argues back. Tears get shed, and then the girls compete with their dances and often win. The mothers forget it all ever happened. Lather, rinse, repeat. Yet, a whole Grapeshot issue would be unable to cover the intricacies of the Dance Moms lore. I would know this, as someone who once ran an Instagram fan page for the dancers of the show. Yeah… Little Miss @aldcvlogging (it doesn’t exist anymore, don’t even try it) was hooked!
I even have a list in my Notes app titled: “dance moms quotes to put on my tombstone”. There are just that many that are that good! One particular moment stands out most from the show. Naturally, it is the one that has been memed, quoted, and replayed to death. “Big Trouble in the Big Apple” is Episode 7 of Season 4 of Dance Moms, and sees “Dance Mom” Kelly Hyland and Miller get into a physical altercation over a dance performance that was entered last minute in an attempt to “sabotage” Hyland’s daughter’s Brooke and Paige. We see Miller call Hyland a “dingbat”, stand up and point her finger in Hyland’s face, to which Hyland slaps Miller as well as pulling on her hair. All in front of the young dancers, their mothers, and of course, the producers of Dance Moms. You just know they were rubbing their hands together like dirty little flies when this went down. Classic reality television.
Dance Moms also had a reoccurring villain in the “character” of Cathy Nesbitt-Stein, a dance teacher from the ALDC’s opposing studio Candy Apples Dance Centre (based in Canton, Ohio). Nesbitt-Stein often pops up by entering her dancers (who she calls her “shiny apples”) into competitions directly against Miller’s dancers, as a means to taunt Miller and the “Dance Moms”. A personal favourite moment of mine is in Season 3, Episode 4 titled “Rotten to the Core”, where a verbal fight breaks out between Miller and Nesbitt-Stein. Miller then soaks Nesbitt-Stein with a water bottle and claims: “I didn’t mean to do that; I thought the witch would melt”. Another sample of Miller’s absolutely icy, yet iconic dialect.
Ever the creative, Miller choreographed numerous beautiful routines for her dancers that were then televised on Dance Moms. But being the unhinged menace she is, Miller also created some wildly inappropriate performances for her tweenaged dancers. This included: a) a “showgirls” themed routine, where her dancers wore nude bras to give the illusion of nudity, b) multiple dances themed around child abduction and death, c) putting a dancer into a straitjacket to portray mental illness, and so much more. Cringe.
Another enormous issue related to Miller was her constant typecasting of Nia Sioux (her only African American dancer) as either an animal, drag queen, a “Bollywood” dancer, or a “sassy” character. Meanwhile, Miller’s favourite (white) dancers got beautiful routines featuring angelic costuming and graceful movements. With absolutely no same-name bias, myself and the general audience of Dance Moms adore Sioux’s mother, “Dance Mom” Doctor Holly Hatcher-Frazier. Of all of the mothers on the show, Hatcher-Frazier is known for being the most calm, cool, and collected of the lot. We see this in a moment of frustration about her daughter’s typecasting in Season 1, Episode 7, where Hatcher-Frazier tells a cameraman there is nothing wrong with the roles Sioux is playing, but: “it is not the Black experience that [they] know”.
Dance Moms became an international hit and wrapped up its 8th season in late 2019. I personally never watched past the middle of Season 6, as most of the original cast I had grown up watching had departed. And it’s no bloody wonder as to why they did – how much of Miller’s cruelty could one take?! It could be said that Karma eventually caught up with Miller around 2016 when she was sentenced and consequently jailed for a year for concealing bankruptcy assets and international transactions that she had made from Dance-Moms-related promotion [1]. Miller then announced in 2020 on Instagram that she had decided not to renew her contract with Lifetime and Dance Moms in order to pursue “new avenues” [2]. The different avenues in question? Hinting at a Season 9 to continue torturing young dancers with an alternate television network [3].
Inappropriate and unhinged, Dance Moms was, all in all, an outrageous show for a dance enthusiast child like me to have grown up watching. I catch myself quoting it all the time to my friends and family, the latter being so appalled that I consumed such content at a young age! I absolutely recommend going down the YouTube rabbit hole of Dance Moms compilations while having a study break. Your eyes may nearly pop out of your head at the show’s sheer audacity, but I promise you will be entertained by the ladies living on the dance floor!
ENDNOTES
[1] Ramirez, Christina Dugan. Abby Lee Miller Reports to Prison Where She Will Serve a 366-Day Sentence for Bankruptcy Fraud. People Magazine, July 12, 2017. https://people.com/celebrity/abby-lee-miller-reports-prison-bankruptcy-fraud/
[2] Levine, Daniel S. Abby Lee Miller Leaving 'Dance Moms' and Lifetime After 9 Years. popculture, May 4, 2020. https://popculture.com/reality-tv/news/abby-lee-miller-leaving-dance-moms-lifetime-after-9-years/
[3] Keller, Erin. Abby Lee Miller teases new, ‘different’ season of ‘Dance Moms’. New York Post, October 21, 2022. https://nypost.com/2022/10/20/abby-lee-miller-teases-return-to-a-different-dance-moms/
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