Let me make something clear. I think edgy is great and I have no problems with certain styles of dance that may culturally be seductive or suggestive. Let me paint you a picture of what I believe is a bit off for me.
Imagine a 13 year old girl dancing to a song that talks about how she is maturing and then decides choreographically to grab her boobs. All this while she is wearing a teddy.
I dont care who you are or what your beliefs are that should not be considered ok. If you think thats ok you need to get your head checked.
The Alvin Ailey company can jump around fierce as fire in there little "man trunks" and that wont bother me. Why? Because its beautiful and they are mature adults and it usually makes sense with what they are doing.

OK moving on to the next subject. Without sounding like a jerk. My choreography is always celebrated as great work. Yet when it comes to "top scores" we are never around. Being in the top score at competitions does not effect me. These girls succeed in other ways.I refuse to ask my dancers to do 15 turns or throw that leg up unless it has a meaning.Dance is a form of expression and we also need to remember that it is art. I want to see some dancing that has gut and passion. The competition dancer will not get into college and jobs working in professional companies if we just teach them tricks. There are many other steps in between the tricks. Its not walk kick, walk turn ,walk jump at Cedar Lake or complexions! Do half these kids know what a contraction is? Am I wrong? I dont prepare my kids for cruise lines and Disney Parades. We should use our skills as teachers to prepare them for the real world, aka the respectful side of dance.
I am a lover and fan of the National Foundation of the arts. Every year these amazing kids, with the right ideas of what dance is, come together in Miami to compete for Scholarships. These children are performing Horton style solos as well as classical variations. This is what all those competitions should be aiming for! These children are given mentors like Barishnikov to help them along the way. Thats a real prize!

I in no way intend to start a revolution but would not mind. Im the last person that will settle for "Its there and we just have to deal with it". Yikes that is a horrible way to think and bad example for our youth.

I may sound stubborn or spoiled, but i have a love for this art and am starting to see a sad future for it if we carry on like this.

Over on another dance teacher message board there is a letter writing campaign going on to all of the competitions asking them to take a stand and disqualify inappropriate material from their competitions. What we all did was write an e mail about how we feel and send it to every competition director we could thing of. Hopefully the more letters they receive the more they may sit up and pay attention.

Definitely write to Daryl and let him know how you feel. I called him last season and told him we would be attending for the first time and some of my parents were a little disturbed by some of the numbers they had seen on his website. One Mom actually googled Hall of Fame and came up with a thread here on DDN about that "Moulin Rouge" number a few years back. He acknowledged it was a problem, but yet at our regional there was a very well established school thats owned by a very well respected teacher who has been around a long time that put several VERY suggestive numbers on stage. My parents were NOT happy, as they are sitting in the audience with their 8 year olds.

I spoke with Daryl at the end of the night and he basically shrugged his shoulders and was like "what can I do"? He was running around that weekend , was very busy , so he didn't even SEE many of the numbers that were inappropriate.

I wrote this letter to the comps yesterday:

Dear Competition Owners and Directors:

I know there is an e mail you have received from my colleagues who are
members of the Studio Owners board on Danceart, the internet dance site
regarding
the need to do something about a lot of what we have all seen lately at
competition which can be considered inappropriate material for children to
watch
and perform. I echo their sentiments and would like to offer a solution
to
the problem.

I am not only a dance teacher and studio owner, but a parent...and a
judge as well.

Back in the 80's when I competed as a student with my studio at USTD, I
remember there always being a scrutineer, a practice borrowed from
ballroom
dancing. The scrutineer's job was to make sure each piece entered adhered
to the
rules. They timed the pieces, counted dancers, made sure there were no
more
than X amount of acro tricks, etc.

My suggestion is that competitions reintroduce the position of scrutineer.
As a judge, I am not willing to be the final word as to what is and is not
appropriate in terms of choreography. I also have several other people on
the
panel who may differ with me. Each competition director can train the
scrutineer as to what they should be on the look out for. Sort of the same
concept as
the censors who monitor content in movies, assigning it the G , PG, PG 13
and R ratings. That way it is ONE person who makes this decision, a person
whom
each of you have supplied with a criteria that is clear and known to all
competitors before entering. For each of you that may vary a bit, but I
think
for the most part we'd all be on the same page. Also, though the first
season
you may have to penalize a lot of schools, I firmly believe that it will
only
be like that the first year as those types of things usually only need to
happen once so that all involved see you mean business, and in subsequent
years
teachers will be more cognizant of what they are asking children to
perform.

As competition directors, you cannot be expected to make the calls as to
what is and is not acceptable since it is not reasonable to expect you to
see
each and every piece. There is a lot all of you do as directors during a
competition and screening each piece is not feasible.

I as a studio owner can GUARANTEE the parents in my school would gladly
pay
a few extra dollars per entry to cover the costs of hiring a scrutineer
to
know that their children will not be exposed to what they were exposed to
this
year, some of it performed by very well established and well known
schools.
I have already had 2 girls whose parents will not let them compete next
season because of what they saw as first time competitors this year. I
have
another that is asking me to call ahead to see if "XYZ School of Dance"
will be
competing, because if they are their child will not attend. This nonsense
is
costing me money, and I feel like sending out letters saying "we need to
do
something about this" is great, but I wanted to take it a step further and
suggest exactly HOW we can accomplish this.



Don't know if my letter will make a difference, I hope so. I only enter 24 or 25 pieces at competition, but maybe if a very large studio takes a stand they'll get the message.

I think the problem is that these large studios are the ones entering these inappropriate dances & the competitions don't want to turn the money away. They would rather turn away the small studio who is unhappy than upset the large studio at the risk of losing thier entries. I understand that they are a business & they want to make money...I wouldn't want to turn away a studio bringing 100+ numbers either. The thing they aren't taking into consideration that their business is geared towards KIDS! That's the thing that gets me...you have to have some integritiy.

And what about the judges at these competitions...do they have no class either?? I know when I judge I say something about the dance being innapropriate & I score accordingly!

The judges hands are tied if the number is only to receive a small point deduction and not disqualification by the director. Please don't participate in the game of "pass the buck". The comp directors MUST be the final word.

And if enough small schools unite and take a stand they will equal the larger schools. The larger schools still need studios like mine ot compete against. Anyway there ARE large schools who are willing to take a stand.

If you've had enough, write a letter. DO SOMETHING. Don't just complain here. It isn't enough.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. I posted something about this a few weeks ago on here. The last competition I went to, I am not even over exaggerating, we were the ONLY studio not dancing in underwear and shaking our little 6 year olds to death. Its INSANE how parents can watch this and think its ok. I watched parents in the audience of competitions covering their husbands eyes! To me that is just DISGUSTING. I have written letters, it seems like we are not getting through. Maybe someone should start a petition? It could be affective.

On a similar but separate note...

How in the world are these large studios keeping students when they pull stunts like these??? You would think THEIR parents would be upset about what the studio is putting their children in and on stage doing!! Yet they are still the big studios with tons of kids! WHY?

Sadly I have seen these kids jump on the stage dancing to "ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK"! and have heard their parents screaming shake it susie. I have seen a group twenty five and six year olds lift up their skirts bend over tush to the judges then grind it. Parents reaction: "Get it girl". Hello! five yrs old? sickos. If my husband started hooting at my five yr old daughter like that i think id vomit. I personally do not have children yet but sometimes i feel like I know more about kids than 90% of the people that have them. The father that are involved with us were walking out of the auditorium because they did not want to feel like pervs. Some missed their own girls dancing because they were scared to come in.
Thats pretty bad.

I was just at a competition this past weekend. It was originally a small, one-day comp and then we had a studio come this time that brought over 100 booty shakin, half dressed dancers. Now, they were phenom dancers...no wait...tricksters. They could turn like crazy and had their legs up in their ears, but man, that got old to watch! This studio is also a presence at their nationals, so I am not sure if this compeitition would turn them away. I would hope so, but I doubt it. Check out my other post because I think I feel a rant coming on!

fitgrl1 wrote:

How in the world are these large studios keeping students when they pull stunts like these??? You would think THEIR parents would be upset about what the studio is putting their children in and on stage doing!! Yet they are still the big studios with tons of kids! WHY?

Because those are the studios who are winning. These people will turn their babies into strippers simply because it gets the trophies. There are words for parents like that, and they're not the type of people I would want at my studio.

I go to university right in the middle of New Zealand's largest city, so sex shops are a pretty normal thing for me to walk by. One day, I saw rhine-stoned lingerie that was, no kidding, exactly the same as I'd seen on a 12 year old on the Hall of Fame website a week previously. Sickening.

I agree with you this trend really needs to end. I appreciate the suggestive and booty shaking when it is applied to the right context and right age group - adult. We are a small competion team and I would rather it stay that way than have to give into this trend. We went to one once - and NEVER will again where a trio of 6 year old did this dance that was so lewd I had my mouth hanging open and I had heard tohoe parents hooting and driving them on. the took the over all top prize - to give them thier due - they were outstanding dancers for any age let alone so young but I was ashamed that anyone could have them dance that way and that the judges would cheer them one ("Get it girls") too.

I think if the competitions start losing us smaller groups together they will get the idea - and we should speak up as much as possible.

Thanks for a chance to rant as well. I will get off the box now after I say - Keep speaking up we can and will make a difference!

I am a coach of a small competition team. We do three regional competitions per season. This most recent year, we tried a new compeition (for us). It was Dancers, Inc. We were so pleased with this competition! This was the only comp that we went to that did not give in to the huge studios, allowing them to put their 5 year olds on stage wearing lingerie, dancing to profoundly inappropriate songs and choreography. Dancers, Inc. is competition/convention. The day of the convention they have a teachers luncheon, where the teachers get to sit down and chat with the director and judges. This issue came up, along with the issue of just giving every dancer a gold or higher. (They also do not do this). They are very much opposed to each of these issues... Basically what I am trying to say is, I highly recommend them!!

I like Dancers Inc. too, but they have nothing to do with the fact that there was nothing inappropriate there. It's just a matter of which schools showed up that day!

very true fossedad. They don't go to the ones that they don't win at....and there in lies the problem.

I looked at the dancers inc website. It looks good but they dont come over to florida at all.