I suppose this is a costume vent.

We have a local festival in October, there is a parade, last year we did High School musical theme, our float and our dance(over the age of 7 walk behind the float and dance)

This year we are dancing to Thriller. We are dressing up in ripped plaid shirts, and the make-up is a white face with balcked out eyes, and optional stitching on the lips, the hair is crimped and teased huge.

The shocking thing to me was that when the high schoolers and junior high schoolers came in tonight and saw the pictures (I dressed up and put full hair and make-up on to show how they should show up) some are refusing and some are "If you will Cindy then I guess I will".

My reaction was, "If you think you are a dancer and you want to excel and go pro, What will you do if you get hired for Britney Spears or Lady Gaga and you are required to wear a thong and have your butt painted with glitter."

It's just a painted face, come on.

Any input? Thanks for letting me vent. Whew!

And it's Halloween! It's not like you're asking them to do it in May or something. Every "Thriller" routine I've seen over the years has had some degree of painted face and crazy hair... it's the character... it's the authentic Michael Jackson music video! I think the only response would be "if you don't want to wear the costume, then don't be in the parade!" Unless it's mandatory they be in the parade... then I would just say "tough! deal with it!"

The only things I can think of is a) maybe they're a little more self-conscious since this is a community event and not just a recital or a comp (where people from school will inevitably be... possibly girls' crushes even) so they might be a little more embarrassed by full make up and b) maybe a compromise could be made for the makeup? Like, not having it be so rigid of "you must use white face paint and black out your eyes" - maybe just "do your own makeup as long as you look like a zombie at the end"? However, you're the teacher - ultimately what you say goes! If I were you I probably wouldn't back down or change anything.

Teens are strange! You never know what they are going to feel embarrassed about or simply refuse to do. And they are like cattle... once one does it, they are all in.

I own a VHS of the "Thriller" video with "The Making of Thriller" at the end. They go into detail about the lengths the artists went to make-up and costume the dancers. It's actually quite interesting. I believe I bumped into it on YouTube once and I think they used to show it on MTV. With Micheal's unfortunately passing, it might be easy to locate. You could show a few scenes so that they can see what was done originally. In the very least, I know you could get your hands on the video and show the costuming that way. It *may* comfort them.

Honestly, I think that this is one of those things that if you allow it to be a big deal, it will be. I would ignore any complaining and just carry on as you normally would. Treat it like you do for any other costume / makeup announcement. Should anyone decide to not show up appropriately, how would you normally handle this? I would do the same for this situation. Hopefully, if you are not cuddling their complaints, they will let it go.

We did Thriller 2 yrs ago - because it was for a baton comp and the girls were in many different routines - they wore masks instead of doing make up.

Would you let them do something like that? Then if its because they are insecure about doing it in the public and someone from school might see them - they can kinda "hide" behind the mask???

Some of the kids had their own masks - I bought some others....this might be an option??