Most little girls dream about becoming a ballerina.  Go to any dance studio and the largest class will feature 3 and 4 year olds in their tutu practicing a plie. As they get older, some of these little girls get involved in other activities or sports. The few remaining girls who decide to pursue their childhood dream join dance companies, where they train all year for performances and competitions.

In 2012, Lifetime premiered the reality show Dance Moms. The show features Pittsburgh’s Abby Lee Dance Company, founded by Abby Lee Miller. The girls on the show are between the ages of 10 and 13. They train rigorously for weekly competitions.

Miller is seen on the show as being extremely hard on the girls. She yells at them and punishes them for losing competitions or forgetting dance moves. Miller also takes out her frustration on the mothers of the girls. Often if Miller is upset with a mother, she will retaliate by not giving a dancer a solo or humiliating the dancer in front of the entire team.

The harsh tactics that Miller enforces and what surprise most viewers watching Dance Moms for the first time is Miller’s “Pyramid”. At the start of each episode, the girls stand in a line. Miller then reveals reveal how well each dancer did the previous week. She positions the girls by placing those who did “best” at the top and the girls she feels did the “worst” that week at the bottom of the pyramid.

Miller begins with the bottom, and works her way up to the top. The faces of the girls placed on the bottom is heartbreaking. It doesn’t stop there. Miller yells at any girl who cries. She often says, “Save your tears for your pillow”.

This is not the way to teach dancers nor to promote self confidence. In fact, many of the original dancers from the company have quit because of Abby Lee Miller. Only four remain.

The ALDC dancers are extremely talented. They quickly pick up the choreography of a huge variety of dance genres- lyrical, tap, ballet, jazz, and contemporary to name a few. They are also extremely dedicated. Some of the girls are even home-schooled so they have more time for dance practice.

Some have even begun their professional careers. Maddie Ziegler, one of Miller’s star students, has branched out and starred in two of Sia’s most popular music videos: Chandelier and Elastic Heart.

Unfortunately, Dance Moms is a very unrealistic depiction of what it really means to be a dancer. The best and most confident dancers have teachers that compliment them and offer them constructive criticism instead of bullying them. Miller’s method, instead, is to push her dancers to succeed through manipulating them, overworking them, and embarrassing them.

Another point of argument is how unrealistic it is for a dance company to compete every single weekend. As a dancer, the company I dance for has been training for a spring competition for nearly five months, practicing and perfecting the same twelve dances.

It takes lots of time and energy to remember and perfect choreography. Learning new dances and traveling to competitions every weekend as seen on Dance Moms can make a dancer extremely emotionally and physically drained. The ALDC dancers barely have time for anything other than dance, so there is no life or school balance.

Another shocker seen on Dance Moms is the enormous pressure to win. Abby Lee Miller often screams at her dancers if they earn second place or lower at a competition. In fact, one of her favorite things to say is “second is the first to lose.” Essentially, this teaches the girls that winning is everything and they are worthless if they don’t win first place.

This past weekend I attended the New York City Dance Alliance Convention (NYCDA). During the weekend, my dance company took master classes in all types of genres with hundreds of other dancers from Chicago.

One of our jazz classes was taught by Joe Lanteri, director of NYCDA.  He told us, “If you are only here to win another trophy, this is not the place for you.”  I agree that winning is fun but having a passion for dance is much more important.

Being a dancer is a very special opportunity because dance is both a sport as well as an art. As a dancer, I have been lucky to have had great dance teachers who inspire rather than terrorize.

I have also been able to dance while still being able to balance school, friends, and other activities. Unfortunately the ALDC dancers do not have this chance, and Abby Lee Miller does not give them the chance to be kids and dancers at the same time.