There are many reality shows out there with incredible premises. Are there really people who get married without meeting first? Do people want to be naked and scared on national television? Okay, yes. But one show, Dance Moms, took the incredible to a whole new level with how intense and dramatic it was.
The show featured dancers and their mothers from the Abby Lee Dance Studio in Pittsburgh, Pa. Yes, the entire show was about all the drama that happened around the dancers, their mothers, and most of all, Abby Lee Miller.
Miller eventually spent time in jail for bankruptcy fraud, and the program was suspended. But all that came much later. In fact, the most entertaining part of The Dance Moms was definitely the first season, which introduced fans to the ALDC dancers, whom everyone immediately felt sorry for once they witnessed the rampant chaos of how mothers and Miller behaved in front of the camera. The season was a train wreck in the best way, but still, looking back, there are quite a few things about that premiere season that was just weird.
Who is Abby Miller and why is she making children cry?
Jason Kempin / Getty ImagesOne of the first things that stood out from the first season of Dance Moms was Abby Lee Miller’s completely unfiltered approach. Miller was not at all concerned with what people thought of her, or with being seen as politically correct in any capacity.
No, Miller was just herself, which is what made the show so entertaining. Much of what made the first season of Dance Moms addictive to watch was not knowing how Miller would react to hearing a mother complain, or a dancer skipping a step.
As Decider bluntly put it, “Here is this mentally unstable dance teacher from Pittsburgh who has convinced herself that she really is an important human being. So important that it can reprimand 8-year-olds”.
Yes, looking back on the first season of Dance Moms, it seems quite strange that an adult woman was behaving this way, in what the network generously described as “aggressive screaming” as a form of dance instruction, and got his own show about it. Still, there’s no denying the fact that it was excellent television, and hey, if nothing else, Miller helped form some excellent and talented young dancers.
Do the Dance Moms kids go to school?
Jason Merritt / term / Getty ImagesIf you saw the first season of Dance Moms, you know that despite their age, the young girls at Abby Lee Dance Company are incredibly talented. They deserved all the praise they received for their skills. But one of the weirdest things from the first season of Dance Moms was how much time the girls spent on the dance rehearsal when it seemed like they weren’t doing anything else.
In a question-and-answer session on Facebook, which would have been in the middle of season 2, Christi Lukasiak, Chloe’s mother, a fan favorite, explained that the girls were hard workers. “They are very disciplined to finish their homework whenever they have a spare moment,” she wrote. “Chloe does hers before dancing every day. Everyone attends regular school full time.”
However, as time went by, it became clear that not all dancers had to do homework sessions early in the morning, as Maddie Ziegler started homeschooling in 2013. “Abby always says girls would be better dancers if they were homeschooled like Maddie”, one of the other mothers complained in a scene from season 4, adding: “And I agree, but in my family, school comes first. I just want my children to grow up normal, not just having dance be their entire life”.
We’re not really sure if it’s weirder or more impressive that the girls could go to school full time and dance as well and as often as they did in season 1.
Was a Dance Moms star a victim of blatant racism?
Lifetime / YouTubeAs much as Dance Moms fans like drama, they also enjoy watching girls do what they are passionate about. So when one of those young women experienced what appeared to be a rather blatant racist profile by Abby Lee Miller, it was hard to see. In Dance Moms season 1 episode seven, Holly Frazier, mother of Nia Frazier was outraged by what seemed like Abby stereotyped her daughter.
In fact, the episode description of the Lifetime website literally says: “Abby’s continued pigeonholing of little Nia in ethnic stereotype roles sends her mother Holly to the limit. For the first time, Holly takes off her gloves and the fighter comes out on her.” Holly struggled when Abby made Nia dance to the song “They Call Me Laquifa” in an afro wig and leopard jumpsuit. Clearly, the troublesome nature of … all of that is obvious, but still, the outrage came quickly.
Described as the “largest independent African-American marriage and parenting site on the web, Black and married with children, she described the oddly offensive routine,” Abby Lee makes it clear that Nia and probably all the black dancers in her eyes will be stereotyped. and typecast according to race; therefore, Nia must know how to drop it like it’s hot if she is going to make it. the business “.
What happened to Lux?
LUXofficial / YouTubeOne of the most memorable moments from the first season of Dance Moms came at the end of the season when the girls auditioned for the lead role in some kind of great music video.
Like the episode description in Lifetime put it, the girls “go from being amateurs to professionals after being cast to perform in a Hollywood music video.” The music video is painted like this big deal, with all the girls vying to be the stars.
That’s all well and good, but the music video star, a young woman named Lux, doesn’t seem like a big star, even though she may or may not be the daughter of actor Ted Danson, Kat Danson, who was trying to dress up with a nom-de-plume at the time. Anyway, this episode, which made it seem like this music video was for a big star and would be someone’s big break, was a bit misleading.
So what happened to Lux? Her YouTube channel, which has 18,600 subscribers, has been awe-inspiring, hasn’t really been active since 2012, and if she’s really Kat Danson, it seems like she never released a full album, which means Dance Moms really played her stardom.
Although Chloe Lukasiak finally landed the lead role in the music video, it was Maddie Ziegler who had a career built-in music video tracks. The whole episode was awkward and looking back, totally weird.
Those fights can’t all be real
Lifetime / YouTubeAs entertaining as Dance Moms is, it’s also hard to watch sometimes. Especially at the beginning of season 1 of the show, when the drama was too much for many children.
Although the children used to not participate in the fights, they still have to witness them, which is worrying. In a season 1 scene, Chloe Lukasiak’s mother was so angry that she yelled at other mothers in the locker room, causing Maddie Ziegler to cry.
However, Ziegler later said that not all of those Dance Moms fights were real. “It is difficult to make a reality show when there is so much crying and drama,” he said in an interview with the USA. Today. “The producers prepared him to make us yell at each other. Do you know how I said that moms fight? Moms have a fake fight sometimes. Then they start talking and laugh about it. Even though the drama in Dance Moms can be totally engaging, that doesn’t mean it’s so authentic.
Abby Lee Miller’s unusual way of building ‘chemistry’ between dancers
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty ImagesOne thing Season 1 of Dance Moms makes it pretty clear that Abby Lee Miller is willing to do whatever it takes to win. For example, in episode 8 of the first season, Abby brings in a boy dancer, Brandon, to do a duet with Brooke Hyland, and it is clearly said that the two have an awkward story. While rehearsing, Abby complains that the two have no chemistry, and then brings their mothers over to speak.
“If you two don’t mind, I’ll send you on a date,” Miller decides. In Channel Guide Magazine’s review of the episode, they note that Miller, desperate to force these two into some kind of pre-teen romance, shouted the following instructions to mothers: “There are no tables for four!” and “Let them do their thing”.
Brooke and Brandon are accompanied by their mothers to a carnival, where Brooke is clearly uncomfortable. “I haven’t seen Brandon in a long time, and now we’re on a date, and it’s really weird,” he says, adding that “if Brandon thinks something is going to happen between us on this date, he’s crazy.”
The entire episode was quite embarrassing, but even the awkward dance performance that stemmed from all of this couldn’t be stranger than the limit of Miller’s inappropriate attempt to force these two together.
How has no one complained about that pyramid before?
Lifetime / YouTubeThe driving force behind all the drama in Dance Moms was the competitive nature of what girls do. And no, that does not only mean the skills they enter and act on. Those performances aside, each dancer at the Abby Lee Dance Company is literally graded by Abby Lee Miller herself, via a fairly robust grading system.
As Decider reported of the first season of Dance Moms, “To top it all off, Abby presents a pyramid each week with the best dancers and worst.” Not only that but “moms are expected to be in the studio for this presentation.” No wonder there is so much drama between the mothers and Miller.
The choreographer literally pits the girls against each other in her own studio. “She puts these kids in a pyramid, it’s a nightmare,” said mother Christi Lukasiak at the series premiere. “It is a nightmare for a child and an adult because we have to wait and take it,” Lukasiak continued, clearly frustrated.
The mothers were obviously upset that Maddie Ziegler was at the top of the pyramid, and the division between the mothers became evident. Seriously, that pyramid was troubling.
That was too much pressure on Chloe
Tommaso Boddi / Getty ImagesThe young dancers in Dance Moms are talented, but the amount of pressure they are put under is immense and, in some cases, too much. In fact, Chloe Lukasiak finally left Dance Moms due to the amount of pressure that had been building up since season 1 of the show.
Chloe not only worked hard but also had to deal with being compared to her dance partner, Maddie Ziegler. “He’s been going from 6:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night,” says Chloe’s mother, Christi Lukasiak, in one scene. In another episode, Chloe gained leadership at a dance, but she obviously felt the tension when she said to her mother, “Miss Abby was saying to me like, ‘Oh, since Maddie’s not in this, you have to win, you have to win”.
After Chloe left Dance Moms, she explained in a video posted on her YouTube channel that although she was “grateful for that experience it was a really difficult time for her. Probably the most difficult she’d ever been through”. Fortunately, Chloe is free from the stress of Dance Moms, but looking back on Season 1, it’s clear she had to put up with a lot.
Maddie was clearly Abby’s favorite
Mike Coppola / Getty ImagesOne of the most defining features of the first season of Dance Moms was the competition between Maddie Ziegler and Chloe Lukasiak. Abby Lee Miller constantly pitted the two girls against each other, and it didn’t seem very fair, particularly because the show seemed determined to make it clear that Ziegler was Miller’s favorite.
The favoritism went so deep for many reasons, including the fact that Miller went to school with Ziegler’s father, and that they were basically friends of the family. But even though Miller sometimes denied favoring Ziegler, it was impossible to ignore that fact.
As Decider reported, “The Maddie versus Chloe drama got out of control. To the point that you really supported Maddie to fail because the show portrayed Chloe as such an unfortunate underdog”.
Ziegler was constantly on top of the pyramid, she got the best solos and outfits, and Miller consistently praised him. That said, the cheeky preferential treatment Miller gave Ziegler became difficult to watch in Season 1, and it seems rather odd to look back.
Was the ALDC and Candy Apples rivalry even real?
Lifetime / YouTubePerhaps the most interesting of the plot points from the first season of Dance Moms was the competition between the Abby Lee Dance Company and the Candy Apples Dance Center. There was a rivalry between the two dance studios, and tensions certainly seemed high when Miller came face to face with Cathy Nesbitt-Steinn, the leader of the Candy Apples.
If all of that sounds too strange to be true, it could be. Of course, Lifetime, intensifying the drama, describe episodes like “Cathy is secretly preparing her Candy Apple dancers to go up against Abby’s dancers,” doesn’t mean the rivalry is so intense.
In fact, as writer Rebecka Schumann reported for International Business Times, behind the scenes of the filming, the two “rival” studios don’t seem to be so angry at each other.
“Rivalry groups remain cordial, sparing their infamous quarrels until after the cameras started rolling,” Schumann wrote, after observing this dynamic with his own eyes when he attended a day of recording for a season 3 episode of 2014.
“While it is difficult to know whether the tensions between parents are generally genuine or forced, it is clear that their witty phrases are not always there of their own,” Schumann also reported, implying that producers also train much of dialogue.
So it’s safe to say that the infamous showdown between Miller’s dancers and Candy Apples could have been dramatized a bit in Season 1.
Some of those movements and outfits seem inappropriate
Lifetime / YouTubeFor dancers, wearing a costume should be practical, comfortable, but it also makes sense for the dance they perform. In the first season of Dance Moms, that’s typically the case, with the girls wearing plenty of tutus for performances.
However, there were some dances and performances that seemed quite inappropriate for young girls. For example, Maddie Ziegler was 8 years old when Dance Moms debuted, but she wore blouses, shorts, and thigh-high stockings for a performance.
As the Season 1 episode description, Episode 2 puts it: “The Dance Moms allow their daughters to wear outfits in a revealing competition and the scandal threatens to tear down the house.” The dance in question is called “Electricity,” and features many suggestive facial expressions and lyrics that shake the booty, and even a moment when the girls drop it like it’s hot.
During the episode, dance mom Holly Frazier, who is the principal of a private school, explains that it is a dance that does not want “anyone from her watching the school her daughter performing, at all. Forever.” It’s understandable that Frazier feels that way, as dancing and outfits might be considered inappropriate for young girls, but that’s all that made Season 1 of Dance Moms so addictive.
