Just My Two Cents

So, I'm sitting here at the dance studio and no one has shown up for my 6:00 class, so I have an hour to kill. It's fine, girls. We don't have recitals in three weeks or anything...With my hour to kill I've decided to write this blog because I've had a lot of people asking me about my stance on this issue, so, here it is:

There's a video that's been going around of 7 year olds dancing very provocatively at a dance competition. They're very scantily clad and most of the moves look like they came out of Carmen Electra's Strip Aerobics videos. I'm not going to post the video, but you can easily look it up for yourself. I'm not posting it because I think it's disgusting. Girls that age SHOULD NOT be dressed like that or dancing like that.

I've gotten into several debates with other dance teachers about this video and it seems that half of us hate it, but the other half seem to think it's OK. As a competition dance teacher, I can tell you that I wouldn't let my girls do that unless they were 18 and even then I'd be extremely hesitant.

Yes, their technique and level of dancing at that young of an age is nothing short of incredible, so I'll at least give it that, but let them be children. I understand the nature of competitions, but that got taken WAY too far. Then I was concerned at how much these girls are probably training and they'll have incredibly short dance careers because of it.

In conclusion, let kids be kids. My 7 year olds dance to Disney songs, The Andrews Sisters, or other songs that have absolutely nothing provocative in them. Call me old fashioned.