Dance Moms - My New Guilty Pleasure

Confession: I have never watched a full episode of So You Think You Can Dance. Nor Dancing With the Stars. For some reason I just can't get into it...I know a lot of professional dancers (and former dancers) who say they don't like to go to the ballet because it's like a doctor watching a show about doctors - it's your job. I actually love going to the ballet, but haven't joined the dance on television craze until this:



It's hilarious.

Having been on an episode of a reality show about dance (MTV's MADE back at The Rock School) I can assure you a lot of this must be staged. They're certainly feeding into stereotypes (and sadly making the -super talented- kids into stereotypes too...the bored teenager, the perfect star...). But the point of the show is pretty real. My family owned a dance studio and no, to my knowledge, they didn't have screaming cat fights every other day with the mothers, but the basis for a lot of the drama is real. And the teacher is real - I've worked with teachers as harsh (or more) as her. Sometimes it's hard to decide who's right in all the arguing.

But besides the backstage drama it's a show of good dancing. The girls that it's focused around are young but very advanced and lovely performers. I watched the first 5 episodes in 3 nights - say what you will, I like it, haha.

My only other current regular show is Glee, but that's off for the summer. And everyone knows I'm a huge Friends and Sex & the City fan, but those are sadly gone for good. A little bad tv never hurt anyone :)

This Day in History - Dancing With the Stars

(picture of a picture...Sept. 12 2006, Dancing With the Stars Promo in Lincoln Center)

(our group of "stars")

Okay, so actually it was a year and two days ago that this happened, but you get the idea. This Day in History...September 12, 2006: I was in a city-wide promotion for ABC's tv show Dancing With the Stars.

They were promoting the new season for the fall, so they had about 75 dancers (girls in black dresses, boys in gold "star" costumes...so attractive) go to various places throughout New York City and just dance while people gave out magnets to advertise the show.

We were in groups of 4 dancers (2 girls 2 boys) plus 2 others to give our ABC stuff. It was an all day affair: our group was first sent to some big subway station in Queens (sadly I don't even remember where it was...) in which we received many a strange look from commuters. Who's doing a tango in heels with a huge star at 8am? Yeah, that was us.

Later we got to dance on the balcony of this nice restaurant in east midtown. Again, many a strange look (and honks) from cars, busses, and people on the street. We had music blasting the whole time of course, and it was so much fun to just let loose and dance! So out of my realm (nooo ballet here...) but it was the most fun couple hundred bucks I ever made for a few hours of dancing!

At the end of the day they gathered all the dancers and "stars" near the fountain in Lincoln Center (in our fabulous outfits we walked all the way from First Ave across town!) for a big group shot (see above). They also filmed a quick little number where we all formed a big star on the plaza (which was supposed to be used in a commercial, but I never actually saw it...)

Anyways, it was quite an amusing experience. I was just reminscing and thought I'd share the memory on here...another new season of Dancing With the Stars starts September 24.

(a folded up star costume)